


there isn't hope, there is a trail

by helloearthlings



Category: King Falls AM (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Alternate Universe - Space, Angst with a Happy Ending, Dystopia, F/M, Gen, M/M, Memory Alteration, Memory Loss, Minor Injuries, Minor Violence, Reunions, Science Fiction, Separations, Team as Family, Technology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-16
Updated: 2018-09-07
Packaged: 2019-06-28 01:45:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 41,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15697617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helloearthlings/pseuds/helloearthlings
Summary: Sammy and Ben make dangerous supply runs on a two-man transport vessel and have had their memories wiped so many times they're losing count. Then again, most people in their line of work have the same problem. Meeting Captain Emily Potter - potentially for the second time - might give them the opportunity to get out of the black market and its debilitating memory wipes for good, assuming they can survive the job she offers them.





	1. This is the same story.

**Author's Note:**

> This is some weird fucking sci fi shit!! I love it, I'm super proud of the plot I'm weaving, but God, this is so on brand. The fic I've written before this that I'm proudest of is my Firefly AU for Merlin and it only makes sense that I'm gonna keep fucking around up in space, only this time with a new universe that I actually created the rules for! When will that ever happen again?
> 
> I hope the world-building makes sense! I have the chapters all planned out, it's just a matter of writing them, and since I'm going on vacation next week, it might be a little slower-paced. Will definitely have it all up by Labor Day, though! Hope you like it, please comment if you do!

The run to Pylea goes as smoothly as can be expected.

This is to say that Sammy doesn’t expect smoothness when it comes to runs where they’re hauling military grade weaponry halfway across the solar system, a combination of scattered memories and muscle memory pushing him in the right direction when the Federation boards them halfway through the run.

It’s a tiny ship, which does the two of them favors in squeaking out of being boarded, but not so much once the boarding takes place. Still, Ben was quick on his feet and shielded the pod bay’s retinal scanners from being accessed while Sammy distracted the agents, and they made it to Pylea in one piece from there.

They’ve made it back to Zenith, currently at cruising altitude overtop the black market in their dual pilots’ seats though Sammy is the only one actually piloting. Ben’s been dozing the past hour or so, and Sammy nudges him awake with his elbow as they get closer to the planet’s surface.

Ben blinks himself awake, gives Sammy a half-grimace.

“Old Man Libbydale’s expecting us in thirty,” Sammy says, and Ben nods .There’s not much else to say.

“Maybe he’ll keep us on,” Ben says, ever the optimist. Or at least Sammy thinks he is. He can never really be sure. “Let us do another run without being wiped.”

“Then we’d just lose whatever time we have in between the jobs,” Sammy says, because he’s the cynic here. Or at least he thinks he is. He can never really be sure. About anything.

“Not necessarily,” Ben says, still clinging to that little piece of hope. Sammy’s envious of that. “The wipes don’t have to take out the full chunk of memory, it can be selective –”

“Only with modern wipes,” Sammy reminds him. “Old Man Libbydale’s old school. He can only go for full blocks. Not as sophisticated as the rest of the system. But it makes him a more reliable client.”

Or so Sammy thinks. His log says they’ve worked eighteen jobs for Old Man Libbydale in the past year, but he knows better than to trust potentially faulty technology. He used to keep a paper journal, but it just depressed him too much.

He’ll find notes that he presumably writes for himself sometimes – _check hydraulic fuel pressure. Buy spare engine parts. Tell Ben you love him._ Simple stuff like that. He never remembers writing them.

Ben sighs, reaching for their communications box, and typing into it. “Alright, control is expecting us at our usual port. Where’s that again?”

Sammy checks frayed note next to the console that he’s sure has been there as long as he and Ben have had this ship. “North Bay. Three rights once we hit the surface, fourth port from the left on Ashbury.”

“Cool cool,” Ben says, lighting up his side of the console as well so he can help Sammy navigate their way down the planet’s surface.

They take their time with it. Wipe days aren’t anyone’s idea of a good experience, and this run was long so they’ll lose more time. Three and a half weeks. Sammy’s not going to remember playing chess with Ben in the hallway outside their quarters anymore.

Presumably he plays chess with Ben often, their chess set is so well-worn. Presumably he wins often too since Ben isn’t very good. But he doesn’t remember playing him, except for maybe a few scattered pictures. Nothing specific. Nothing tangible.

They have to land eventually though, and they arrive at their port ten before they’re due to meet Old Man Libbydale at his place of business, which Sammy knows is the Rock Garden. He won’t know it’s the Rock Garden soon enough.

Zenith is bustling as always as he and Ben deplane, Ben taking care to leave a note on the console to stop for rations before they head out again. Sammy doesn’t know when that’ll be or who they’ll be working for, but he knows they’ll be heading into space again sooner than later.

They’re planetside at least for now, and the black market is swimming around them. The black market on Zenith isn’t underground – Zenith itself is the black market, regulated criminal activity, the hub of all criminals in the system to get jobs, get revenge, get what you were looking for.

At least Sammy never forgets that.

The sea of faces passes Sammy by in the hot rays of light coming down from the suns in opposite directions. It’s the hottest time of day, and Sammy rubs sweat from the back of his neck.

They get to the Rock Garden before long, a tiny unmarked building on the outskirts scattered with a trail of pebbles on the sand leading up to it to mark the location. Sammy looks over at Ben, who’s biting his lip.

“Got anything to say to me before we get wiped?” Sammy asks, trying to bring levity to the situation. “Some burning insults to get off your chest?”

“Yeah, your breath smells,” Ben says without missing a beat and Sammy laughs, but it doesn’t break the tension. “Do you think we’ve ever slept together?”

That almost does, startling another laugh out of Sammy and he says “Do you think you ask that question every time before we’re wiped down?”

That sobers Ben up, the teasing smile fading from his face. “Maybe.”

“It’ll be alright,” Sammy says, because it always is. From what he can tell from the tally marks scratched into the wall in his quarters on the ship, he’s been wiped down over three hundred times. And yet he’s still here, and so is Ben, they’re still working jobs and doing runs and they’re alive and no one’s separated them. “Love you, Ben.”

Ben’s face lights up. Sammy’s not sure of a lot, but he’s sure Ben’s his best friend. It’s probably the only thing in the solar system he’s certain about.

He nudges Ben forward slightly, leading the way into the Rock Garden.

* * *

 

When they emerge, the last thing Sammy remembers is being given a rendezvous point by Kirk to go meet a potential client. He’s blinking the haziness out of his eyes, his head aching, and immediately searches for Ben next to him.

Ben’s there, coughing and his eyes going in and out of focus, but there. It’s all Sammy needs.

He pulls Ben to the side of the road where there’s a series of benches specifically made for recovering from wipes. Almost every place of business on Zenith will wipe, at least for important jobs and runs, and those are the ones that pay best.

“SD 78931,” Sammy reads from his watch. “Twenty-four days passed.”

Ben winces. It always hurts a little, time passing without recognition. Sammy doesn’t recognize himself in the mirror most days anymore, but this has been his lifestyle for a while now, and his body’s used to it even if his mind isn’t.

“Looks like we didn’t get a second job with – with whoever that was,” Ben practically hacks up a lung, and Sammy emphatically thumps his back.

This is the part of Ben he remembers most – sitting here on the benches in Zenith recovering from a wipe. No one’s going to bother wiping the recovery of a wipe.  Ben always takes it worse than Sammy, and it can’t be because Sammy’s had more wipes, they’re always doing this together.

Maybe they haven’t always, but to try and pick up the pieces of Sammy’s past will make him sick. He’s got everything before sixteen down pretty clearly in his head, but isn’t quite sure how he ended up here from a privileged childhood on Loak Peak. Fell in with the wrong crowd, Sammy expects. He might find the answer if he digs, but goddammit, he can’t dig again.

Ben’s what matters, Ben’s what’s important. Ben and if they got paid for the job that Sammy no longer remembers.

He clicks through his watch and sags his shoulders in relief when he sees the credits. “Good haul this time – ten thousand creds. Must’ve been a big trip.”

“Three and a half weeks, probably nothing to sneeze at,” Ben says once he recovers himself, though his voice is still a little scratchy. “Maybe – maybe we can take a break? Take some time off here? Since we have the creds.”

Ben’s voice is hopeful, and God it’s tempting, but they’re not getting out of the black market with ten thousand creds, and they need to save up enough money to get out for good if they ever want to have a life of remembering.

“We’ll at least take tonight off,” Sammy says as a compromise, and Ben nods with a grimace, understanding.

It’s hard to make a plan when your mind is constantly being wiped down, but he and Ben have one, try to talk about it during times they know they’ll remember to keep it fresh. They’re going to score a big job one of these days, a massive fucking job that will get them to the far reaches of the galaxy with no obligation to return.

“Let’s get some food,” Sammy says, pulling Ben to his feet so they can get out of the immediate area, just in case their former employer is still watching them. “You’ll feel better once you eat.”

“Fresh fruit?” Ben asks hopefully and it’s not in Sammy’s nature to deny him that after a wipe.

“Yeah, we’ll go to the marketplace,” Sammy says, taking Ben’s elbow to get him through the crowd as not to be separated. Zenith is a large, sprawling, nasty place to get lost in, and Ben’s smaller than most. Sammy doesn’t want to lose him.

Sammy doesn’t remember meeting Ben. It’s an odd thing to say about your best friend, but not in their line of work. If he had to reach, he thinks his earliest memory of Ben is on a ship, different than their two-man transport vessel they pilot now, and Ben looks quite a bit younger with his hair cropped a bit shorter to his ears. Sammy can’t say for sure though, just knows he’s got that picture in his head.

Ben’s just always been there, as far as Sammy can tell. They do jobs together. They run merch. Sammy doesn’t know where he met Ben, where Ben’s from, more than three quarters of their time together is missing from his head. But Sammy knows he loves Ben, would never leave Ben, would die if something happened to him, and that’s the important thing.

Muscle memory – that’s what Sammy has when memory fails him, and his muscle memory says he loves Ben so he trusts that instinctual urge and makes sure Ben stays safe.

Ben’s chattering at the lady at the fruit stand when they arrive at the market, and Sammy’s liable just to let Ben buy what he pleases – if they’re not going to take time off, the least Sammy can do is let the poor guy have some decent food.

When Ben’s finished paying and Sammy turns around, he almost hits the woman in line behind them, and quickly rights himself with a quick “Sorry, didn’t see you there.”

He’s planning on just moving on and pushing through the crowd, but the woman’s mouth falls open at the sight of him, and when he tries to move, he finds that she’s got a hold of his wrist, and her grip is tight.

“Sammy?” she whispers. She seems so shocked to see him, her bright eyes going wider by the second. She’s a young woman, thirty at most, with dark red curly hair tied in a plait behind her head, her garb typical Zenith fashion of a leather trench coat and black standard garments underneath. She looks entirely innocuous, and Sammy doesn’t even slightly recognize her.

“I thought you might be dead,” the woman says, and she’s smiling at him, so wide and bright, and Sammy clears his throat quickly.

“I’m sorry, I don’t remember you,” Sammy says a bit awkwardly, but the woman quickly composes herself, blinking what seem like tears away from her face. “I’m sorry to offend, it’s just I’ve been wiped down often.”

“Oh, it’s fine,” the woman says. It’s not the first time someone’s recognized Sammy and he hasn’t known them in return, and the opposite has been true on occasion as well. It’s typical enough to happen here. Everyone on Zenith’s been wiped down a time or twelve. “I’m just happy to see you.”

“And you are?” Sammy asks, because there _is_ something about her, something Sammy can’t place, and it feels important.

Before she can answer, Ben pokes at Sammy’s shoulder from behind him. “Hey, I’m done, we can get out of here.”

The woman’s gaze grows impossibly wider and suddenly there are unmistakably tears in the corners of her eyes. “B-Benny? Is that you?”

“It’s Ben,” Ben says, stepping forward confusedly. “Who’s this, Sammy?”

“I’m so sorry, I just – I’m so happy to see you two,” the woman says, biting down hard on her lip, and the tears dry up a moment later. “My name is Captain Emily Potter.”

Emily reaches out a hand to shake, and though it feels forced, Sammy takes it. She shakes Ben’s hand after his. She’s genial enough at least, and a captain to boot, even if the name doesn’t cause the itching in Sammy’s head to subside.

“Have we worked a job with you before?” Sammy asks politely and Emily hesitates for a moment before nodding.

“Yes,” she says firmly. “Yes, we’ve worked together before.”

That makes sense – sometimes, if a captain and a client have worked out an arrangement, captains won’t be subjected to the same kind of wiping procedures as their crew, especially if Emily captains one of the larger and more successful vessels on Zenith. Though Sammy can’t think of why such a captain would hire a pair of mid-level pilots is beyond Sammy, but maybe they fit a skillset she needed on a particular job.  These things happened.

“Actually,” Emily says before either of them can respond. “I’m looking for a crew for a large-scale job right now and you two would fit perfectly with what I’m looking for.”

“Really?” Ben asks from next to Sammy, his eyes knitting together somewhat suspiciously.

“I’m familiar with what you two can do,” Emily reminds him, her smile sincere. “And I need a pilot and a doctor for my trip to the ring."

"We're both pilots," Ben says, a bit confusedly, and Emily blinks equally confusedly back.

"Yes, of course," she says, her features returning to neutral. "I'm still looking for a doctor, is all. If you know anyone. But since you're both pilots, and my ship is more easily piloted by two, I was looking for a pair."

“The _Ring_ ,” Sammy hums, ignoring that exchange in favor of being appreciative of a job in one of the richest parts of the system. That sounds like it pays some fucking creds, even if it’ll probably be the hardest fucking wipe he’s had in years. Those who steal from the rich and elite don’t like the thieves to remember who hired them.

“Here, I’ll give you my ship’s coordinates,” Emily says, scrambling slightly with her bag to give Sammy a placard with her information on it. Her ship is the Dryad, it’s at a port a good train or three away from here. Sammy wonders what she’s doing in this market and not one closer by. “Come by tomorrow morning and I’ll give you the details and you can…can make a decision.”

“Alright,” Sammy says, and though cynical, pockets the card. It can’t hurt to check, especially since Emily so clearly knows who the two of them are based off of her visceral reaction to seeing them. “We’ll think about it and see you there tomorrow.”

“It’s – it’s so good seeing you,” Emily says genuinely, trading eye contact with each of them before pushing past them into the crowd without another word.

“She’s pretty,” Ben says nonchalantly as he and Sammy start moving in the opposite direction. “When do you think we worked with her?”

“I can check my journal,” Sammy says with a shrug, “though I don’t keep perfect records by any means.”

“You only write about facts and figures anyway,” Ben says with a roll of his eyes. “I’ll check my journal – I’m more likely to have written down a name.”

“Probably,” Sammy says neutrally. “It’s worth checking out her offer, though – I mean, The Ring. There could be some serious opportunities there.”

“Serious money,” Ben corrects, a wistful look in his eye. “God, imagine not having to be on this fucking planet anymore, Sammy. Imagine just being able to….to go out there. Into the universe. And not care about Zenith or the market or Chancellor Grisham and his fucking Feds.”

“I know,” Sammy says, because he does, and because it hurts to even hear Ben talk like that right now when they’re so far away from that being a reality. “That’s why we at least need to think about the job. I don’t know if I trust her, though. She says she knows us but –”

“We should do it,” Ben says. “I trust her – maybe it’s that muscle memory you talk about.”

“Maybe,” Sammy says quietly.

* * *

 

_“Hey, hey, let go of my scalpel! It’s dangerous, dangerous I tell you!”_

_Sammy walks into the med bay to see Ben and Emily mock-wrestling over a handful of Ben’s tools, none of which Sammy knows the name of. Except maybe the silver, metal band that’s locked between their interlocked fingers is the aforementioned scalpel._

_Sammy clears his throat loudly, and Ben and Emily spring apart, Ben with a guilty blush and Emily with an apologetic smile._

_“Why is it that whenever I come to the med bay, Doctor Arnold is acting like a five years old?” Sammy asks to no one in particular. “How am I supposed to trust him with my health and safety?”_

_“I’m your Captain and I’m guaranteeing it,” Emily says cheerfully without missing a beat as Ben glares at him and half-brandishes the scalpel in his direction. “I’m betting you’re not here for health and safety reasons anyway.”_

_Sammy sighs and turns to Ben. “Jack and Troy want to play baskets, two on two, and Mary’s already refused them. I said I’d play if you would. Which you’re under no obligation to.”_

_“And watch you embarrass yourself? No way am I missing out on that,” Ben grins, already setting down his tools and shrugging off his jacket. “Unlike chess, I have a chance of winning this. As long as we're not on the same team. Health and safety can wait for a couple hours – sorry, Captain Potter.”_

_Emily’s eyes sparkled as she tilted her head at Ben with clear affection. “Go on, have fun. I’ll just be upstairs all alone with my paperwork.”_

_“That’s what you get for being in leadership,” Ben says in a sing-song voice. “But before I go, I do need to ask you about the Federation’s Health Code updates. We don’t have the most recent version here, can you buzz Agent Gunderson and get him to send those down the ladder?”_

_Emily hesitates, biting her lip, and Sammy and Ben exchange a worried glance. It’s an odd reaction at an innocuous request that Ben’s surely made in the past when health codes needed to be kept up to the standards for Federation crew ships. Just because they were one of the smallest in the fleet didn’t mean they would be ignored come inspection time._

_“Is something wrong?” Ben asks her, and Emily shakes her head._

_“I don’t know yet,” she says, her voice much quieter than before. “I – I need to talk to Jack about it before I bring it to the crew, I need him to break some encryption codes to confirm my theories before I say anything –”_

_“Emily,” Ben says, worried and soft. “Is it bad?”_

_Emily shrugs, a helpless look in her eye. “I’m not sure yet. But I think – I think there’s something wrong in the Federation. Hold off on the new standards for now, okay, Benny? I don’t want to bring attention to us if – if it’s not necessary.”_

_Sammy sucks in a breath as Ben says “Yeah, yeah, it’s fine. No problem. Just promise you’ll let us know if this becomes something.”_

_“I will,” Emily says with troubled eyes. “I promise I will.”_


	2. No, this is the rest of the story.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again! With a long chapter this time. This one has more context/exposition because...Emily knows more. I think it's slightly different stylistically, but with the POV change, I think it's excusable. Hopefully Ch3 will be up tomorrow, but the rest of them will be a little more spaced out as I'm leaving for vacation on Sunday. 
> 
> I really like the vibes of my new weird universe! Thanks for reading!!

Emily pushes through the crowd of the Danto marketplace, not even bothering to say I’m sorry or excuse me as she practically crashes into at least half a dozen market goers, tears burning her eyes as she desperately tries to get out of the claustrophobic marketplace.

Once she’s out of the worst of the crowds, she finds a secluded bench along the side of the winding, cobbled street. It’s meant for recovering from a wipe, but Emily’s recovering from something of equal gravitas.

She sits down, pulling her jacket more tightly around her so as to avoid attention, and starts to sob.

She’s sure anyone watching will just think she took the wipe badly – she’s seen criers on street corners before. She’s not entirely sure what a wipe is supposed to feel like, but she knows some people have more intense reactions than others.

Eighty-four. That’s how many times Emily’s been wiped. She’s kept a count. Fewer than most on Zenith, she’d already be considered one of the lucky ones even if the wipes did their job properly when it came to her.

Fortunately, the wipes didn’t do their job properly.

Wiping her eyes, Emily composes herself enough to get out her comm device to fire off a message to her latest employer. He’s going to want to know that Emily’s finally found the last two missing pieces of her crew.

What the Dark doesn’t know, will never and can never know, is that this isn’t just _a_ crew – it’s _her_ crew. And she’s not planning on letting them go any time soon.

The Dark replies within an instant – he really does have too much free time on his hands, in Emily’s respectful opinion – with a note that says _meet me at my super secret hiding place. Secretly. Tell no one._

Emily refrains from replying that that’s what a secret _is_ , but the Dark is as fair a client as any. Maybe even more so, since he’s actually doing something for the good of the system, at least from his own point of view.

And Emily’s point of view too, when she really thinks about it. Being a Federation captain for five years makes her a little reticent to believe in rebellion and revolution, and the past three years as a captain of a smuggling vessel wouldn’t be enough to do it alone.

It’s what happened in between the two that has her convinced that the Dark is doing what needs to be done.

She likes to think her crew would agree with her. That is, if they could remember what the Federation had done to them.

Ben certainly would agree – God, Benny, her Benny, he looked so different and yet ever the same. His hair’s longer, somehow even curlier; he’s actually managed to grow a bit of stubble, which Emily would have laughed about if she’d had the ability. It looked like there was a scar across his neck from what Emily could see, and it had made her shake at the idea of someone hurting him without her there to protect him.

And then Ben – Ben, who she loved more than anything in the world had barely looked at her, said _who’s this, Sammy?_ and didn’t give her a second glance.

At least he was alive. Him and Sammy both – and they were together, Sammy was there to protect Ben when Emily couldn’t. She wondered how they managed to stick together – or maybe they’d found each other? Maybe one of them had remembered like she did, and yet somehow lost that ability?

They didn’t recognize her, that was for certain. It was all gone. Emily knows the look in their eyes all too well –it’s all gone.

Emily takes control of herself, stands up off the bench, blinks her tears away rapidly, and goes to meet the Dark.

* * *

 

“Six?” The Dark’s voice is mildly judgmental from behind the screen that separates them. The Dark wants to keep his identity a secret, and Emily understands and respects that, but he’s going about doing it the wrong way. For one, he cares much more about the drama of the secret than the secret itself, and Emily’s sure that if she pisses him off, he’ll come out from behind the screen that makes him appear just as a shadow with larger and more pronounced features than he would have had on his own.

“A crew of six?” The Dark repeats when Emily doesn’t merit his question with a response. “I don’t know if you understand how essential this mission is, or how much work it’s going to be. Six people can’t bring down the Science Institute, no matter how good or cool or sexy they are.”

Emily refrains from rolling her eyes.

“My six can,” she says instead. “Whatever the plan is, we can adapt it for a small crew. Besides, do you really want to trust a large crew with this kind of information?”

“That’s what wipes are for,” The Dark says in that smug _gotcha_! tone of his that makes Emily rethink her position on despising him.

She doesn’t. She thinks he has the right idea. He just has an insufferable personality to match.

“Still,” Emily sticks to her point. “A larger crew gives more people the ability to screw up, especially if one of them believes in the cause a little less than the others. Everyone I’ve recruited has a reason to want to see the Science Institute go down – even if they can’t remember what that reason is.”

Her heart aches as she thinks of Benny. _Who’s this, Sammy?_

 _You thought he was dead_ , Emily reminds herself firmly. _You thought he might be gone forever and now he isn’t anymore. This is a good thing._

“Alright, you’ve got a point,” The Dark says with a sigh. “Who’s on your crew anyway?”

Emily hesitates, but knows that The Dark is going to figure out soon enough anyway. “Mary Jensen.”

The Dark hums, tilting his head, the shadow on the screen that Emily can see tilting as well. “She’s the mechanic on the Rathers?”

“Yes,” Emily says, wondering how he knew that. Well, the Dark had his connections, at the very least.

“Every ship needs a mechanic,” The Dark says in a grudging tone, as if he’s disappointed he didn’t get to prove her choices wrong. “Who else? Who’s the pilot?”

“I have two,” Emily says, though the words do taste a little foreign in her mouth. Ben doesn’t remember that he’s a doctor – she stayed up through the night with Ben as he poured over textbooks, studying for his full medical license. His residency was on her ship, and he’d only just gotten fully certified before it all happened. “Sammy Stevens and Ben Arnold.”

“Don’t know them, sound like schmucks,” The Dark says, always the height of immaturity. “But two pilots is a good idea, you’ve got better odds of escaping alive.”

“Yes, that’s what I thought,” Emily says, like she planned it that way.

“And tech?” The Dark keeps persisting, and this is where it’s going to get a little tricky, because there’s no way the Dark isn’t going to know this name.

“Jack Wright,” Emily says, and the Dark starts to laugh, loud and wheezing.

“The _mercenary_?” The Dark practically yowls. “What does he know about computers? Not that I’m against him being on the crew – I’d love for him to gut a few of those science schmucks at the Institute on your way in and out. But he’s your muscle, not your computer tech. Seriously, who is it?”

It’s painful to hear anyone talk about Jack like that, Jack with his square glasses and quick fingers and laugh that scrunched his face up. Jack, who knew everything there was to know about tech and could spend hours talking about it before Sammy told him, very fondly, that no one cared.

“My sixth member,” Emily says, so as to deflect slightly, “is Troy Krieghauser.”

“Is that supposed to mean something to me?” The Dark asks. “Who is this guy? He know about computers? You need someone to know tech or you’re dead in the water, Captain Potter.”

“Yes,” Emily lies, thinking that if Jack doesn’t remember computers like Ben doesn’t remember being a doctor, then she’ll figure out how to hack into the system. She used to be a tech, nowhere near Jack’s level, but Jack taught her enough of his tricks before he forgot her.

But then again, she’s researched wipes. She knows that even if the memory is gone, the instinct remains. She’s counting on that.

“Well then, sounds like you’ve rounded out a decent crew,” The Dark shrugs. “Anyone there know anything medical in case something goes badly?”

Emily can’t even think about Ben. “We’re all well-versed in basic aid. If something more extreme happens…”

She swallows, her throat suddenly constricting.

“We’ll find a way,” she finishes lamely, but the Dark and his shadow on the screen both nod at her.

“Get them all on my contract and bring it to me in two days,” The Dark says, and Emily relaxes. “You move out a week from tomorrow, there’s a very tight window that this can work during. I hope you’re right to trust all of these people.”

“I do,” Emily says, nothing ever truer. “And whether they know it or not, their lives were ruined by the Science Institute. Let’s hope their instincts say they want revenge.”

She thinks the Dark smiles at that.

* * *

 

Emily doesn’t go back to her ship right away. Instead, she goes to the Red Rock Bar and Lounge, three meters down from where her ship is ported.

“Hey there, Captain Potter!” She’s greeted happily at the door by the man behind the bar – Troy. Troy Krieghauser. He’s polishing the glassware as he beams at her over the counter, and Emily can’t help but smile back, going to the mostly empty bar to take a seat across from him. “How goes it?”

“I’m alright, Troy,” Emily greets warmly. “How has business been?”

“Oh, busy as ever,” Troy says in that jovial way of his. “Dead during the day, wild during the night. Chet Sebastian’s in here at all hours, though, say hi to Chet!”

Emily waves down the bar at the older gentleman at the end of it, who smiles back in that lecherous way of his. Emily’s frequented this bar enough to know that despite appearances, Chet is mostly harmless, so she doesn’t mind giving him a quick smile.

“Have you had any time to consider my offer?” Emily cuts right to business as she looks at Troy, and the smile slides off of Troy’s face, replaced by something much more anxiety-filled.

“I’m awful flattered, Captain,” Troy says, not quite meeting her eye. “But I don’t know how much good I’ll do you. I ain’t never been on a ship before. That I can remember.”

Emily wants to take his hand and say _yes, yes you have, you’re a Federation commander, you’ve spent more time on ships than most people will in all their lives_ , but she can’t say that. He won’t believe her.

“That’s fine, Troy, I’m not looking for experience,” Emily says instead, slowly and kindly, because she _needs_ Troy and he’s going to be difficult to convince. Not that he’s liable to be rude, there still isn’t a rude bone in his body, but all Troy remembers is bartending.

“Well, unless you’re looking for someone to mix drinks, I’m not sure how much I can help,” Troy says in that deeply genuine way of his but Emily just shakes her head.

“I need someone I can trust, someone who will have my back,” Emily says. “And I trust you, Troy. And don’t say you don’t have any other skills. Whenever there’s a creep threatening a girl in here, what do you do?”

“I throw him out on his ass,” Troy says as if there’s no other answer, and Emily just nods.

“That’s what I need,” Emily says. “Someone who knows right from wrong who can make sure no one touches me on this trip that isn’t supposed to. Can you do that?”

“Like a bodyguard-type?” Troy asks, eyebrows creasing, obviously still dubious.

“Sure,” Emily says, “if that’s what you want to think of it as. Just think of it as coming to protect the crew, okay? Me and the other four crew members, we’re going to need someone with good eyes and a good heart to make sure we don’t get hurt.”

“I – okay, Captain,” Troy says, and his smile suddenly becomes very bright. Emily always knew that Troy would _want_ to come along, if only to not be pouring drinks for a while. “I assume I’m gonna get wiped down after with the rest of your crew?”

Emily can’t promise otherwise, all she can do is nod, and Troy nods back at her.

“I know I been wiped before,” Troy says slowly, “because I got some fuzzy times in my head. But I ain’t been wiped for the past three years since I started workin’ here. I’m probably due for another one if I’m gonna keep livin’ on Zenith and keep up credentials. I’ll watch your back, Captain Potter. Just tell me when and where.”

“We won’t take off until next week, that gives you some time to prepare,” Emily tells him kindly, relief settling in her bones. “But come to my ship tomorrow morning to sign a contract and meet the crew.”

“Aren’t they your usual crew?” Troy asks, puzzled. “Leroy and James and them?”

Emily shakes her head. “This…is a special crew that I’m putting together just for this mission. You might know some of them if they’ve come into the Red Rock before, but I’m not sure. You’ll see tomorrow.”

“Alright, Captain,” Troy says, a determined look in his eye now. “I’ll be there.”

Emily squeezes his hand in thanks on her way out the door.

* * *

 

Back before she’d run into Sammy and Ben, Emily thought she’d have to run the mission with only four and keep on her usual pilot, Leroy. As difficult as that would’ve been, if Sammy and Ben had been truly gone, she knew that they would’ve wanted the crew to do this without them.

Emily’s never believed in fate, but she might now – seeing the two of them again, together, after all these years. It was more than she could’ve ever hoped for, but it also feels like they ripped open a wound in her, the pain of which she hasn’t felt since she landed on Dreyfan all those years ago with a head full of memories she wasn’t supposed to have.

She’d smuggled herself onto a freight vessel to Zenith from there, knowing Zenith was the only place in near space where she’d have prospects without money to her name – or even a name, her identity had been stripped from her. She couldn’t have a place in Federation space ever again – it was either Zenith or far space, and the money to get out to far space didn’t come easy.

She’d scrounged around Zenith for jobs, all of them wipe jobs, but she wasn’t afraid of the wipes. The wipes didn’t work. She kept the memories. She had to pretend she didn’t or no one would ever trust her with a job again, but it was like the wipe barely did anything. Made some things fuzzier around the edges, maybe, but there were no empty spaces where her memories should be.

She remembered every single day.

It was Troy she knew was alive first, because Troy’s never left the Red Rock. From the first time Emily saw him behind the counter, the day after she managed to buy her own ship for runs, she knew that he didn’t recognize her, but that was fine.

She got to see him. She got to see her friend at least once a week, see his genial grin and unassuming attitude and gentle nature. The wipe couldn’t take that away.

Mary was the next person she knew was alive – that had been last year. Emily had been meeting with a different captain about supply routes for a mutual client, and she’d passed Mary in the halls of his ship.

Mary hadn’t even blinked in her direction.

It was enough to know she was on Begley’s crew, Emily knew it would hurt too much if she recruited Mary for her own. So she watched her from a distance when they were both ported, and though Mary looked tired and worn, she also looked whole.

Emily had approached her three weeks ago about The Dark’s job, and though she’d been reticent at first, her eyes lit up when Emily named a price. She’d been the easiest to convince.

Jack…had been harder.

For one thing, Emily had only seen Jack once in the three years since they’d been forcibly separated. It had been almost one year ago, in the city square two markets down from Emily’s ship on Zenith.

There had been a shoot-out – this wasn’t uncommon, shoot-outs happen occasionally on a planet full of criminals – between two younger ship’s aids. It had been broken up by a figure in the crowd who’d shot both boys dead.

Emily had whirled around, and seen Jack Wright standing between the two dead bodies, his face blank, expressionless, and uncaring as he took their IDs off their cold bodies.

She’d wanted to walk up to him, say something, anything, but there was something about Jack that scared her, and it wasn’t just the scar down the side of his face that hadn’t been there the last time she’d seen him.

It was the violence, the energy, the way he barely seemed to care about the bodies he’d left behind.

Emily had tailed him to his ship, which she soon discovered wasn’t his when she contacted his captain – Jack Wright was a contract mercenary with no ship or crew of his own. He was hired when someone wanted someone else dead, and a ship was hired to take him to wherever the victim was meant to meet his match.

It made Emily ache. Jack had always been so gentle, with his friends especially. Now there was a hardness to him and Emily didn’t know if he was still capable of being the man she knew.

Emily hadn’t even spoken to Jack yet. She’d asked around, put a word in through the right channels, and named a price. She’d gotten a message back from an unknown contact that Jack Wright would meet with her to sign a crew contract on the date she specified.

Tomorrow. Everyone would be in the same place tomorrow for the first time in nearly three in a half years, since their crew had been ripped apart at the seams.

And they wouldn’t know one another. 

Emily wishes her life was anything but this.

* * *

 

Emily wakes up before the sun does and starts obsessively cleaning the ship’s kitchen so she can focus on anything but what’s coming.

She can’t think too long or too hard without starting to cry again, especially when it comes to Ben, so she alphabetizes the pantry for the two hours before Mary Jensen awkwardly knocks on the kitchen’s door.

“Oh, I’m sorry, you’re early,” Emily blushes, sticking her head out of the pantry to see Mary frowning over at her. “Nice to see you again, Mary.”

She strides forward to shake Mary’s hand, which Mary takes without hesitation. “And you, Captain Potter. I’ve never been onboard the Dryad before. Very roomy.”

“A little bigger than you’re used to, I’m sure,” Emily says and Mary nods.

“Been on Begley’s transport for the past – well, awhile now,” Mary says, grimacing. Emily knows it’s hard for most people here to keep track of time, with so much of it being snatched up. “Good for a change of pace, even if I won’t remember it when it’s over.”

Emily doesn’t argue the point, even though she has no plans to let her crew be wiped down again. She’ll explain the situation once everyone has arrived.

“Well, I’m sure you’ll enjoy your time on my ship,” Emily says. “It’s about a three-week job, give or take, including travel time, so you’ll have time to get to know the ship.”

“It’s a similar model to what I’m accustomed to working with,” Mary says with a nod as she surveys the ship. “I should have no trouble with any repairs or modifications you’ll need for the run. Care to explain what the run is, exactly? I’m willing to do about anything for a job paying one million creds, but it’s best to have the details.”

“I’ll explain once the rest of the crew arrives,” Emily says. “I’m hiring a different crew for this trip because of the secrecy surrounding it.”

Mary lets out a low whistle. “Must be a hard fucking wipe at the end of it all.”

Emily doesn’t respond, instead moving past Mary to offer her a bowl of snacks she’d laid out. “Strawberries? I just got them at the market yesterday.”

“You know how to treat new people,” Mary smiles at her, and takes what’s offered.

“Oh, are those strawberries? We never get strawberries down at the Red Rock, too expensive for a sleazy bar.”

Emily turns down the ramp leading from the port bay to the kitchen to see Troy loping up with an easy smile, his bartending uniform traded in for something with more wear and tear – threadbare t-shirt and denim, plus a cargo jacket. He looks like he used to on their lazy days on their old ship, and Emily blinks a couple times to remind herself of where they are.

“Troy?” Mary asks, a genuine smile on her face, though she casts Emily a confused look. “Good to see you.”

“You too, Mary,” Troy says, his voice pleased, before turning to Emily. “Mary’s a regular customer down at the Red Rock.”

“What’re you doing here?” Mary asks, not unpleasantly, just with curiosity. “I didn’t know you went out on runs.”

“I don’t,” Troy says, because of course Troy would never lie to save face. “But Captain Potter asked me along on her trip here because she said she needed people she could trust, and I decided to take her up on it.”

“Well, if I was putting together a crew of trustworthy people, you’d be on my list too, Troy,” Mary says with a warm smile that’s directed first at Troy and then at Emily. “Who else is coming? Is this a big crew?”

“No, there are only three others we’re waiting on,” Emily says, anticipation and anxiety growing exponentially in her chest. “I don’t think you’ll know any of them, but maybe –”

She’s cut off when she sees someone coming up the walkway. It’s just the one figure, and she thinks Sammy and Ben will probably come together, so this can only be –

God, Jack looks the most different of anyone else. Emily already knew that but it takes her breath away all over again. His hair is buzzed shorter on the sides, his features are sharper and leaner, and he has a guardedness to his expression that Emily’s never seen before. He cuts an impressive figure with his broad shoulders and leather coat that’s even longer than Emily’s. He bypasses Mary and Troy entirely, who stand staring at him, to shake Emily’s hand.

“Captain Potter, I presume,” he says, and his voice is raspier than Emily remembers it being.

“You must be Jack Wright,” Emily says, and from the corner of her eye she can see Mary’s mouth fall open. She must recognize the name, though certainly more from rumors than remembering how she and Jack used to go to one another for help when there was a problem that they couldn’t solve on their own, because in their own words, they were the two smartest people on the ship. Ben always took offense to that. “Welcome aboard the Dryad.”

“Is this your crew?” Jack asks, voice still even and neutral as he turns to look at Troy and Mary. Troy looks unfazed, though Mary’s mouth is tight.

“Half of it,” Emily says. “This is Mary Jensen and Troy Krieghauser. Mary’s a mechanic, Troy’s here as…a bodyguard.”

Jack shakes both of their hands. He and Troy are of a height, though Mary is a full foot smaller. She used to jump on their shoulders when she needed to reach something.

So did Ben, Emily remembers, with a ghost of a smile, though he generally insisted on jumping on Sammy’s shoulders, which Sammy always pretended not to be amused by.

“I didn’t realize this run was quite so high-profile,” Mary says, still shaking Jack’s hand. “Or that there would be…”

“Death involved?” Jack asks, and there’s a slight teasing air to his words even if his voice remains rough.

“If all goes well, there won’t be,” Emily says, and Jack turns to frown at her.

“Am I not contracted as an assassin for your mission?” Jack asks. He doesn’t sound angry, but he doesn’t sound pleased either.

“You’re contracted for weaponry and protection,” Emily says. “It may be necessary to kill. It may not be. In the case of the former, then you are here as an assassin. If it is the latter, you’re here to make sure that no one assassinates the rest of us.”

“Fair,” Jack says without blinking. “You’re paying well, I’ll sign your contract.”

“Do you know what the run is?” Mary asks, her eyebrows knitting together with suspicion and Jack shakes his head.

“I don’t need to know what it is to know that it’s a one million cred job,” Jack says. “Splitting that six ways still leaves plenty for me.”

“I’ll get the contracts once my pilots are here,” Emily says, heart racing at the idea of Sammy and Jack seeing each other. Could they possibly remember? Cut through the fog to recognize each other? “And explain the job as well, Mary.”

“This job is going out to the Ring, yes?” Mary asks when it’s quiet for a moment and Emily nods in response. “Any particular location on the Ring?”

Emily hesitates, is about to answer that she’s going to wait on that information as well, but then she catches sight of the two figures at the end of her ramp and her breath catches. One tall, one small, both her best friends in the world – but she has to keep that under wraps, she has to control herself.

“The pilots are here,” Emily points in their direction, waiting for the two of them to approach. Sammy’s in front, and he nods at Emily when he sees her looking at him.

It’s easy to forget, in the face of seeing Ben again for the first time in three years, that she misses Sammy like she misses a heartbeat. She and Sammy just go together, smooth and easy, and she can’t count the number of times she came to sit with him in pilot’s bay, just to talk, just to be at peace as they stared out at the stars.

Ben’s face becomes clearer as they approach as well, but Emily can’t look at him, directs her eyes on Sammy only. Sammy’s hair is much longer than it used to be, and in general is much more unkempt. Probably because Jack’s not there to make sure he’s taking care of himself – but at least he’s had Ben.

“Captain,” Sammy says, clear apprehension in his voice as he shakes her hand. Ben shakes her hand too, smiling where Sammy’s grimacing, and Emily thinks a piece of her crumples and dies at the way his face holds no recognition of her.

“Well, this is the crew,” Emily says with a loud clearing of her throat. “Sammy Stevens and Ben Arnold, meet Mary Jensen, Troy Krieghauser, and Jack Wright.”

Handshakes go all around. Apparently, none of them recognize one another. Emily takes careful notice of Sammy and Jack, but when they shake hands, they barely blink at one another.

They’re wearing their wedding rings, Emily notices, her heart seizing up unpleasantly. Each of them still has a small silver band on their left hand, even though they clearly don’t know why they keep wearing it. And now they’re here, together, six years after they exchanged those rings, and there’s not a glimmer of recognition.

Another piece of Emily slips away.

“The job,” Mary repeats. She’s clearly very anxious about this, and honestly, Emily doesn’t blame her.

“Right,” Emily says, gesturing toward the kitchen table and chairs. “You can all take a seat.”

They do, and their eyes flicker across one another. Emily wonders if there’s any nagging recognition in there, but there’s certainly nothing on the surface.

“So,” Emily says, heart in her chest. “As you know, this job will take us out to the Ring and pays one million credits. I’ve neglected to mention two very important aspects. The first is that the job isn’t just taking us to the Ring – it’s taking us to the center of the Ring. The Science Institute.”

“You’re kidding,” Sammy mutters under his breath. Troy and Ben’s faces both go pale.

“Maybe the mil isn’t worth it,” Mary says, biting her lip but Emily isn’t done.

“The second thing,” Emily says, hesitating slightly “is that this job doesn’t pay one mil split six ways. It pays one million creds…for each of us.”

 _That_ creates a reaction. Troy’s jaw hits the floor, Mary practically slaps Troy’s chest as she gapes up at Emily. Even Jack reacts, his eyes going wider.

Ben hits Sammy’s shoulder, hissing “Sammy, that’s…”

“I know, I know,” Sammy says quickly, gaping in Emily’s direction as well. “Is this legit? Do we get this in writing?”

“I have contracts for you, you can all comb over the fine print,” Emily reassures him. “We’ll each be getting paid one million, one quarter now, three quarters when we return.”

“I don’t give a shit about the Science Institute, that money’s worth it,” Mary says, her voice almost faint. “Dear God.”

“The work of the job itself is tough and dangerous, but the reward will be great,” Emily tells them determinedly, her voice leaving no room for doubt. “But this job requires the utmost caution. We take off one week from tomorrow, and you cannot mention the details to anyone within this week. Do you understand?”

They all nod, and Emily takes a deep breath.

“Our client, who wishes to remain nameless,” Emily starts, “is hiring us to hack into the mainframe of the Science Institute.”

She almost expects the room to explode, but it doesn’t. All five of them just stare at her, waiting.

“He is looking for proof,” Emily takes a deep breath, “that the Science Institute’s research is being funded and aided by the Federation. There has long been suspected corruption in the Federation. It wasn’t long ago that Agent Gunderson and Chancellor Grisham were discovered as having political and financial ties to bigoted mogul Howard Ford Beauregard III who was funding them politically in exchange for sending ships to and prosecuting populations that served his ends.”

None of them look surprised, but none of them hold the recognition in their face that it was _them_ who exposed it, no time and yet so very long ago.

“My client suspects that the Science Institute has similar ties,” Emily continues. “As I’m sure you all know, the Science Institute developed the memory wipe fifteen years ago, and it remains illegal in Federation space, the commonality of its use only here on Zenith and among criminal circles. What I’m sure you don’t know is that the Federation has also been using the memory wipe illegally on its political prisoners. We’re here to find proof of that, along with any other Science Institute developments that the Federation is using behind closed doors. The Institute is classified as a cult, and though its existence is not illegal, much of its technology is. We’re there to get the information so my client can expose the corruption.”

Five faces stare up at her with varying levels of shock, horror, and disgust.

“You need a computer tech,” Jack is the first to speak, his voice level.

“I’m the computer tech,” Emily says in response. “I was a tech before I was a captain, and from what I’ve heard about you, Jack, you have some experience as well.”

“Not nearly as much as you’re looking for,” Jack says. “I have about four memories of technical school left in my head, I don’t know how helpful that’s going to be in this case.”

Mary turns to him with surprise, but then again, she’s the only one who recognized him by reputation.

“It’s enough to help me,” Emily says. “Your primary job will still be weaponry. We have permission to be at the Science Institute on SD 78948 for an official tour. Getting in will be the easy part. Getting out will be the hard part. Sammy and Ben, you can route our escape. Mary, I need all hands on deck for speed and secrecy. And Troy and Jack, I need you two with me at the Institute. We’ll come up with a more cohesive plan as we go along once we are familiarized with each other’s skillsets. But I chose all of you for a reason. This is the only crew that’s going to get us where we need to be.”

“I’m in,” Ben is the first to speak. “I don’t trust the Science Institute, and to hear that kind of info about them…they need to be taken down.”

“Plus,” Sammy says, a wry grin twisting his features, “the money.”

“The _money_ ,” Mary repeats with fervor. “I’m in.”

“So am I,” Troy says, which Emily expects. Troy would never go back on his word.

Jack taps his fingers against the wooden table, his eyes careful on Emily’s. “What about the wipe?”

“What about it?” Emily asks, her heart thrumming slightly.

“A job like this means a bad wipe,” Jack says. “I’m sure we’ve all had one in our lines of work before. But there are wipes, for jobs like this, that debilitate you. The info you know is too important for a client to take a chance. There’s a chance you’ll lose _everything_ with a wipe like that.”

Emily casts a look at the others’ reactions. Troy’s face is scrunched up, but he seems determined anyway. Mary grimaces.

Sammy’s the one who looks the most nervous, casting a look over at Ben. Emily recognizes the look in his eye as a reflection of herself. Oh God, oh God, I don’t want to forget Ben. I don’t want Ben to forget me.

“There is a clause I fought for in our contracts,” Emily says quietly. “I’m sure it’s one that none of you have ever worked with before. It’s only for the highest profile jobs. But if this mission is successful – if we get the information back to our client – then none of you will be wiped.”

“ _What_?” Ben stares directly at her, and the others shift to stare as well, but she has eyes only for him. “How is that –”

“I’m the captain, I’m the only one who’s had contact with our client,” Emily says. “None of you can be traced back to him. If we are successful, I’m the only one who’ll be wiped.”

She doesn’t like the way they’re staring at her, like she’s making some sacrifice for them. She isn’t. Wipes, large or small, don’t affect her. A wipe of this size might make things blurry, but it’s not going to obliterate her. But she can’t tell them that yet, her lovely crew, because then she’d have to tell them about the five years they all spent together in what feels like another lifetime.

“But if we fail, we’re all wiped down. Hard,” Emily says, swallowing. “An extra incentive for success.”

“Then I’m in,” Jack says, without even blinking, no hesitation. “This can be a success.”

Emily looks at the rest of the crew, and there’s a look of resolve in each of their eyes, a look Emily likes.

“Think about this way,” Ben offers with that grin of his that Emily loves so much. “We’ve all probably been wiped down so many fucking times – it’ll be great to piss off the guys who made wipes possible in the first place. Even if we do fail – that’s a great way to go out.”

“Glad you think so,” Emily says, taking care not to let her voice crack with emotion. “I’ll go get the contracts.”

She leaves the five of them sitting at the kitchen table.

* * *

 

_“Alright, folks time for some Krieghauser family cookin’!”_

_“Loretta must miss you terribly,” Ben giggles as he starts forking the pot roast Troy made for the night onto his plate before anyone else can start dishing up. “This looks to die for. As in I'm dying for solid food.”_

_“Tim doesn’t miss me,” Mary laughs, waving Ben’s fork away with her own. “He does all the cooking at home. He sent a vid the other day of him and Bella in the kitchen together – the sweetest things.”_

_“Aw,” Emily says, reaching across the table to squeeze Mary’s hand. “Tell Tim hello from all of us and that he’s welcome to come aboard anytime. The kids, too.”_

_“Maybe they’ll come onboard next month if Tim can get time off from the Bureau but I can’t,” Mary says, and Emily wishes she had more power to decide when her crew could take leave, so that Troy and Mary at the very least could get back to their families._

_“I can’t wait to babysit!” Ben says, grinning over at Mary. “Bella and I need to catch up on our reading.”_

_“Because you have a toddler’s reading level?” Sammy snarks in Ben’s direction._

_“So he can practice for when he has kids of his own,” Jack says in that sarcastic way of his, putting a hand over his heart._

_“Ben’s_ still _a kid,” Sammy scoffs._

_“I’m twenty-eight!” Ben argues with a sulky expression on his face. “And I’m a doctor!”_

_“Not yet you’re not,” Sammy says. “Come talk to me when you pass your exams. You’re the youngest person on this ship by three years, therefore, you’re a kid.”_

_“And you’re mean,” Ben sticks his tongue out at Sammy before shoving him lightly._

_“Emily! He’s touching me!” Sammy whines in Emily’s direction, batting Ben back, and Emily cracks up._

_“You may as well have just said Moooooom,” Jack snorts under his breath._

_“Maybe I shouldn’t bring the kids onboard since there’s already two right here,” Mary’s eyes dance with laughter as Sammy and Ben glare at her._

_“I don’t know why we’re talking about Benny having kids when the two people on this ship who might_ actually _have a baby are being left out of the conversation,” Troy says, his smile verging almost on shit-eating, but mostly genuine as Sammy and Jack both blush._

_“Still a ways off,” Sammy says under his breath, though the affection is clear._

_“We’ve gotta get married first,” Jack says, his smile soft on Sammy._

_“That’s like two weeks from now, that’s barely an excuse not to talk about it,” Ben argues, his smile the brightest of anyone else’s. “I can’t wait for you guys to have a kid that’s around all the time. I love your kid so much already. I’m gonna be godfather, right? Right?”_

_“Troy’s right there,” Jack gestures laughingly in Troy’s direction. “We can’t choose between you right here, right now – about a hypothetical kid, I might add.”_

_“Not really hypothetical,” Sammy mutters under his breath, exchanging a grin with Jack. “I mean, still a nebulous, unknown kid – but we’ll definitely have one for Ben and Troy to fight over. Someday.”_

_“Oh, guys, that’s easy,” Troy says, laughing. “Ben and Emily can godparent the first kid, Mary and I can godparent the second one. It ain’t rocket science.”_

_“Sounds like we’re making a plan for you,” Emily says to Sammy and Jack, both of whom aren’t exactly meeting anyone else’s eyes, but they both have ridiculous smiles on their faces._

_“Ben can’t be a godparent until he’s a doctor and thus proves his adulthood,” Sammy declares, and Ben groans loudly._

_“When I get my medical license and we throw a party, your toast better damn well include that I’m an adult and you’ll start treating me like one,” Ben says and Sammy pokes him with his fork._

_“Never,” Sammy vows, and Ben turns to Emily with wide, puppy dog-like eyes that she can’t possibly say no to._

_“That’s a direct order, Pilot Stevens,” Emily says cheerily as Ben pumps his fist. “A toast to Ben’s adulthood.”_

_“I’ll start writing it now,” Sammy says with a sarcastic and wry grin._

_Jack interrupts, smile wide, “I’m sure he’ll try all the bad jokes out on me first, so thanks for that, Emily.”_

_“You love my bad jokes,” Sammy says and Jack doesn’t respond, just grins, and Ben and Emily both coo at them from the other end of the table._

_Emily looks at Ben and wonders – maybe someday, they’ll be getting married and talking about kids like this. She can’t help but hope. It’s too early to think about though, so instead she just takes Ben’s hand in her own and watches him light up at the touch._


	3. This is the wrong story.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so: some scifi shit happens in this chapter. Do I understand science? No. Do I understand weapons? No. Do I understand space? No. I have no idea what is or what isn't scientifically accurate, and also do not care, because I've decided this takes place in a universe where all of the things that happen in this chapter are possible scientifically, because science is different in this universe. 
> 
> Next few days won't see an update because I'm on vacation, but hopefully the rest of the chapters will be up shortly and I'll have some time to work on them! Thanks for reading, please leave a comment if you like it, I've been working really hard on it!

Something seems off to Jack.

Or rather, a little too _on._ It’s easy. It’s smooth. It’s _familiar._

It’s concerning when something is familiar.

Jack’s heard other people talk about the things they remember, and he knows that his experiences don’t line up with theirs. He can’t remember a full, clear childhood for one thing. He remembers slices, pieces. He remembers his parents rather well, though there seems to be an empty space next to them in most of those memories. He remembers parts of school, though that gets more sporadically placed as he ages, and filters off. He knows he was in technical school for at least a time, though has no idea most of what he learned or how long he was there.

He remembers flashes of a ship sometime after that, but nothing concrete. Just slices. Like a meat cleaver dividing his life into things kept in place and things discarded. A conversation with a friend in school, but the friend’s name and face is gone. An argument with his father, but only half of what he said.

Jack gets feelings, every so often, of familiarity – oh, I’ve been here before. I’ve seen this at some point. This is someplace I know. Some _one_ I know.

That’s the feeling he has now, despite the fact that half the crew won’t talk to him.  He’s sure that Mary the mechanic has spread around who he is, that sterling reputation of his, and they’re too scared to approach.

Ship takes off, there are perfunctory hellos, Jack finds his quarters, and doesn’t leave.

He’s getting synthetic food from the kitchen the next morning when someone clears their throat behind him. Jack half-turns to see one of the pilots – the shorter one, Ben? – waving awkwardly at him.

“Hey Jack,” Ben says, his voice slightly higher pitched than Jack remembers it being. Maybe he’s nervous. Jack sometimes makes people nervous. “How’s it going?”

“Fine,” Jack says, keeping his voice even as he moves away from the cupboards to sit at the table. Ben’s still standing awkwardly, and Jack hopes he sits down soon as to make this less weird. “How are you?”

“Good, good,” Ben says. Jack wonders if there’s a point to this. “Hey, quick question – have you…worked with Captain Potter before?”

Jack blinks at him. “I suppose it’s possible. But nothing within my memory or records would indicate it. And she doesn’t seem the type to usually hire – someone like me.”

Jack figures that it’s best not to remind Ben that he’s an assassin right now. Jack does take a slight issue with the title – is he really an assassin if he can’t remember killing anyone?

Well, he supposes the dead people would still think so.

“It’s just, I don’t know, there’s something about you,” Ben says, finally pulling out a chair and staring at Jack a little too intensely. “Something about all of this. The captain told us that we’d worked with her before, I was just wondering if everyone else had as well.”

“It’s possible,” Jack says with a shrug. “But I know what you mean about the…something.”

“Maybe we’ve tried to steal shit from the Science Institute a hundred times before and we get wiped every time we go,” Ben says conspiratorially, though Jack thinks he’s mostly kidding. “Attempt #105 in progress.”

“You know, I wouldn’t put it past this fucking universe,” Jack says with a roll of his eyes and Ben laughs. “When you said _we_ before – you mean the other pilot and yourself?”

“Yeah, yeah, Sammy,” Ben says with a wave of his hand. “We copilot a two-man transport. Have for who knows how long.”

“Maybe you’ve transported me somewhere before,” Jack remarks idly and Ben’s forehead creases.

“I don’t think so, I think I would’ve kept a note if we had someone else onboard,” Ben says. “Besides, Zenith may be central zone for criminals, but I doubt we’d ever agree to transport a…”

“Assassin,” Jack fills in when Ben flushes. “Mercenary. Gun for hire. Take your pick.”

“Yeah,” Ben says, awkward again and not meeting Jack’s eye.

It’s alright. Jack doesn’t blame him for not continuing, but it doesn’t make for great conversation.

The sliding door on the right side opens and Emily strides in, though she stumbles slightly when she sees the two of them sitting together.

“Captain,” Jack greets, and Ben mimics him. Emily stares at them a second too long before smiling and nodding in greeting.

“Hi, how are the two of you doing? Adjusting well to the ship? Anything I can get you?” Emily asks, moving toward the pantry.

“All good here,” Ben says and Jack nods along with him.

“How do you know all of us?” Ben asks, point blank, and Jack and Emily both stare at him, Emily with wide eyes, Jack mainly with amusement. He hadn’t expected Ben to just come right out and ask. “Have we all worked with you and been wiped but you weren’t?”

Emily stares too hard at Ben, and Jack makes a note of it. There’s something odd about the stare But when she speaks, her voice is mild and collected, so Jack thinks he may have imagined it.

“I’ve met you all,” she says, skirting around them to pull something out of the pantry as she talks. “You and Sammy have worked with me before. Troy, I know from the Red Rock where he bartends, he’s a personal friend that I knew I could trust. I know Mary through the ship she usually works on that’s captained by Ron Begley, he’s a friend of mine who’s worked with me before. And you, Jack – well, I mainly know you through reputation but…we’ve met.”

She doesn’t quite meet Jack’s eyes. Jack wonders if he did something to her, if he killed someone she knew. He can’t think about that too hard or his stomach will start turning.

Jack doesn’t think he acts like an assassin. He’s not quite sure what the rules are, but he feels like he doesn’t follow them to a tee. At least he hopes he doesn’t. He tries to maintain a distance from others – he never knows when he’s going to be asked to kill them.

Even if he’s going to forget them before he kills them, he doesn’t want to have known anyone who meets the wrong end of his gun.

“Ron Begley, that name sounds familiar,” Ben says, apparently buying Emily’s words as truth. “I’ll ask Mary about him later.”

“He’s a well-known captain – you may have worked with him before, I’m not sure. Well, you’re probably not sure either, but…” Emily trails off, turning pink, taking her crackers out of the pantry and wolfing down a handful before she speaks again. “He hires a lot of folks to come onboard his rigs.”

“You know Ron, Ben,” Jack turns to see the other pilot, Sammy, coming into the kitchen area. The whole crew is firmly in the _too familiar_ category in Jack’s head, but there’s something about Sammy that’s separate from that. Still familiar, but in a different way. Jack doesn’t want to think about it too much. “We fuel at the same station before we go out on jobs. We’ve only recognized him a handful of times, but he always knows us.”

“Huh, yeah, you’re right,” Ben nods, turning to fully face Sammy. “How’s she running up there?”

Sammy shrugs. “Clear skies ahead, got her set to alarm us both if something gets in the ship’s way. But we’re out of any main hub, so there shouldn’t be any traffic for the next few days until we get up close and personal with the Ring.”

Ben hums. “Cool cool, I’ll plan on doing a diagnostic check in a couple hours.”

“Sammy,” Emily interrupts, a slight frown on her pretty face, “have you and Jack met yet? Other than our first introductions last week, of course.”

“Don’t think so,” Sammy says, turning from facing Ben to look at Jack. Jack hasn’t looked at his eyes before now, but there’s something interesting about them. Maybe the way the light’s reflecting? “Sammy Stevens. Mary says you’re a mercenary. Must be an interesting line of work.”

“Jack Wright, and Mary’s correct,” Jack says. Apparently they’re doing away with formalities. “And I wouldn’t know.”

He and Sammy exchange tight smiles. It’s hard to bond with folks on Zenith because all of that bonding will be lost the next time someone goes in for a wipe. But it’s easy to bond over that empty space in your head left behind.

“Hopefully we won’t need your…services,” Sammy says, mouth twisting unpleasantly. “Though I’ve heard enough nasty things about the Science Institute that, well, I wouldn’t be surprised if we did.”

“There were awful rumors floating about them back when I was a kid,” Ben chimes in. “I mean, being a kid is the only thing I remember clearly so take that with a grain of salt, but I’m sure they’ve only gotten worse since then. Especially with the wipe….that shit’s pure evil, man. Everyone here can probably agree on that. Hell, everyone on Zenith – maybe the whole solar system, actually. Political prisoners being wiped? That’s next level shit.”

“I saw on the comms that the ship is registered as a research vessel,” Sammy looks up at Emily, who nods. Jack doesn’t know how that will help specifically, other than in not letting the Science Institute know that they were coming from Zenith, the most untrustworthy place in the system. “How’d you swing that?”

“The client,” Emily explains, and by the roll of her eyes, Jack figures she doesn’t have a high opinion of the client, which is curious. “He has some connections, though I don’t know to whom. But he got the paperwork and the research ID, so I’m not complaining. We can get in the Institute with our scheduled tour – we can hold a debate about it if necessary, but our cover story should be as simple as possible. Research vessel from Guanam looking into the most advanced technology in the system. I hear the Science Institute likes flattery.”

“Typical,” Jack mutters under his breath, but the sound is more amplified than he would have thought. A second too late, he realizes that he and Sammy said the same thing at the exact same time.

Sammy grins at him, fleeting, but it’s gone in a second.

“Why Guanam specifically? Are they doing anything tech-wise in the system right now?” Ben asks, forehead creasing. “I’m sure you’re more up to speed on current events than, well, anyone else here.”

Jack grimaces. It’s so hard to know what’s going on in the universe  - he’d take the pieces of his own mind back over anything else, but he’d love to be able to retain anything about life off of Zenith. Life in the Federation specifically.

Jack doesn’t know how many planets he’s been to, all he knows is Zenith and no matter how many times he leaves, he doesn’t know where he heads.

But this time – after this job, he’ll actually remember – he’ll remember the Science Institute and the Ring and Captain Potter and even Sammy and Ben.

There won’t be a missing space this time.

“Not necessarily, though Guanam is one of the more quickly advancing planets in the Federation,” Emily explains. “But I’m from Guanam, so I know the culture a bit better than most and can supply personal details if asked.”

“Good plan, they’ll like a touch of that,” Jack says. “I assume if it’s clear how many times any of us have been wiped, they’ll know we’re from Zenith immediately.”

“Well, I mean, none of us are _from_ Zenith,” Ben says lightly, not argumentatively, though Sammy elbows him with a glare. Jack doesn’t mind, though, and just gives Ben a nod.

 “I guess the more correct way of saying it as that we’re all _of_ Zenith,” Jack says slowly. “I’m sure none of us have been to our home planets in a very long time. I sure as hell haven’t been to fucking Loak Peak, and if I have, it was for a job and not a visit, so it’s not like it’s anywhere left in my head.”

Jack expects grimaces to that, but instead, Ben’s face splits into a grin and he hits Sammy’s chest with apparent excitement. Jack doesn’t really _get_ Ben.

“You’re from Loak Peak?” Ben’s grin is white and blinding. “Sammy’s from Loak Peak! Right? Right, Sammy?”

“Yeah,” Sammy says, casting Jack a curious look. “I am – what part are you from? Vivise?”

Jack shrugs, grimacing, wishing that he knew. “Not sure. I lose facts and figures more easily than anything else. I think it was a city, if that helps. And I went to a tech school – if there’s one of those in Vivise, then…”

“I think so,” Sammy says slowly, “though I don’t know for sure. I grew up on the west side of Vivise.”

“You’re probably about the same age, maybe you knew each other!” Ben says excitedly, hitting Sammy’s chest again, and Sammy grabs his hand to hold it still with a glare.

“Too bad we’ll never know,” Sammy says, turning to Jack with a half-smile, half-frown. It’s exactly how Jack feels about the situation. It’s not worth dissecting why anything is familiar when you’re never going to get it back. “But I’m pretty clear on life before sixteen, so I doubt we grew up together.”

“I only remember slices,” Jack says slowly. “I think I know what I’ve been doing most all my life except for a few years here and there, but there are missing facts, places, people. Like they’ve just been sawed away.”

“That’s how I remember things too,” Ben says, and God, is the kid enthusiastic about everything? Not that he’s really a kid, but he’s younger than Jack, and there’s this kind of youthful energy about him that Jack’s almost envious of. “I can follow back through most everything but with missing pieces here and there. Like – there’s a full three or four years I can’t remember anything of, but ever since then I remember pieces of Zenith. And before then I remember a school, though I don’t know where or for what. Maybe I was taught something really important that needed to be cut out. Like how to take down the Science Institute! How ironic would that be?”

Ben laughs at his own joke, and Sammy laughs too with clear affection in his eyes for Ben. It’s good that they have each other. Jack wishes there were someone, anyone else that he knew, that was an anchor in his life of floating meaninglessness, but there’s just the people who hire him and the people who wipe him.

Someone. Jack wishes he had someone.

Emily doesn’t laugh either, and that’s when Jack notices the look in her eye, like Ben’s said something he shouldn’t have. She’s been a little too quiet for the conversation, and there’s something so unbearably sad in her expression that Jack has to look away.

Maybe she wishes she had someone, too. Jack can’t fault her for that.

* * *

The ship gets a little easier to breathe on after that. Emily is cordial and polite, but she’s also busy and harried and putting together pieces of an extremely complicated and dangerous plan, so Jack doesn’t blame her for how she treats any of the crew. And Mary’s still distant and snappy and distrustful of Jack, but Jack figures he’s never going to get on her good side.

He could explain that he despises the idea of murder, that he has no idea how or why he ended up living his life, why he has the reputation that he does, because Jack has no memories of death. Only the muscle memory that tells him when to shoot lets him know that the rumors he hears about himself are true.

But Sammy and Ben become much easier to be around after the ice is broken, and Jack finds himself up in the pilot’s bridge more often than not. Sometimes Troy will join them, but Troy seems to be genial and lovely to just about everyone regardless of where they come from or what they’ve done, which Jack appreciates.

He had wondered why the local bartender had been invited, but Emily seemed to have been correct – there was no one more trustworthy or loyal than Troy. Jack hopes that that won’t hurt him later on. He feels a protective urge to keep Troy safe.

Well, if Jack’s honest, it’s more than just Troy. It’s Ben, too, because Ben is so bouncy and enthusiastic and energetic, and even though Jack knows that any pilot on Zenith has faced more than their fair share of hardships, Ben doesn’t act like it. He just bounces back with a grin and a sarcastic comment and a jab with his elbow in Sammy’s direction.

Jack also feels protective of Sammy, though that one’s less clear on reasoning. He just is. Maybe because Sammy’s from Loak Peak, or because they have similar opinions about the system and ships, or maybe it’s the nagging feeling in Jack’s head that this is something important, he isn’t sure, but analyzing it isn’t going to do anyone any favors.

At least Jack likes the crew. He’s going to remember them, so it’s good that he likes them. Maybe he can have a friend – someone to get a drink with while they’re both on Zenith – he could meet Sammy and Ben between jobs, head down to the Red Rock to chat with Troy, maybe even see if Emily wanted to see him.

Most of what Jack knows of Zenith is whispers, whispers and people who avoid his eyes. Kind of like Mary.

Five days into the their eight-day journey to the Ring, Jack finally sees her again – she’s not deigned to be in the same room as him recently, and will generally leave if he enters. But then they practically run into one another in the narrow corridor that houses all of the crew quarters and Mary glares sharply up at him.

“Sorry,” Jack says, not knowing what else to say. “Didn’t see you there.”

“I’ll bet you didn’t,” Mary says, trying to push past him. Jack usually doesn’t confront hostility because he generally thinks he may deserve it, he has very little sense of who he is or what he might have done, but for some reason, Mary seems different, Mary seems like she… _matters._

“Did I kill someone you know?” Jack says suddenly before she can get out of the corridor, and she turns back to him with her mouth hanging open. “You’ve been very hostile and I – and I don’t exactly remember my victims.”

Something unreadable but decidedly unpleasant twists on Mary’s features. “Well, maybe you have. I wouldn’t know, either.”

And then she’s gone, down the opposite door and Jack’s left more confused, above all about why he even cares.

Instead of disappearing into his own quarters, Jack realizes he’d rather not be alone, and heads up the stairs to the bridge. He can hear Sammy and Ben bickering before he even opens the door.

“It’s a fucking big rig you absolute plebian, we can’t just run it in loops because we feel like it –”

“C’mon, we could get everyone buckled in, turn the gravity boosters on! There’s not even any merch to watch out for!”

“You’re a five year old.”

“Better than being ancient.”

“I’m not – you’re– well, I don’t know how much older than you I am, but it can’t be by much!”

“Keep telling yourself that. I still think you’re just a very youthful-looking forty-five.”

“Well fuck you, if that’s the case, you’re a mature looking-twenty.”

Jack holds in a laugh as he slides open the door to the bridge, and Sammy and Ben both turn to him when they hear the noise from their pilot’s seats out facing the forward-windows. Ben beams at him, which Jack will never get used to, and Sammy’s smile is understated but still present, which somehow hits Jack even harder.

“Jack can back me up,” Ben declares to Sammy. “How old do you think we are? Neither of us can remember our birthdays, so it’s all up in the air.”

“Well, I remember mine,” Jack says, “and I’m thirty-eight, and I doubt either of you are older than me. Sammy, you’re probably…older than thirty-five? And Ben…older than twenty-five?”

“ _Thank you_ ,” Sammy says, giving Ben a shit-eating grin. “I think I’m thirty-six.”

“I think he’s forty,” Ben says sulkily, rolling his eyes. “And I think I’m at least thirty!”

Jack gives Ben an appraising look. Maybe it’s because he’s so small, but Jack just can’t see it. “It’s…possible.”

Ben pumps his fist but Jack quickly qualifies “I’d say twenty-seven if I had to guess, though.”

“Fuck you both,” Ben gives them the finger and swivels his seat back to face the windows, punching in a few codes on the ship’s dashboard as he does.

“You know, if you two didn’t have different surnames, I’d guess you were brothers with the way you argue,” Jack comments lightly. Sammy and Ben exchange a look that Jack recognizes immediately as long-standing affection.

“We’re not really,” Ben says, a smile playing on his lips. “We both remember enough of growing up to know that we were both lonely onlys. But we are in my heart.”

“He’s a walking cliché,” Sammy says, not looking at Jack but at Ben. “A _correct_ walking cliché, but still.”

“Must be nice,” Jack says, half-grimacing. “Really _knowing_ someone.”

“Kind of,” Ben says. “It’s sad, too, I mean – I love Sammy, but like, I don’t even know how we met.”

“Really?” Jack wonders why he’s so surprised. But then again, on Zenith, there aren’t many pairs, only people going at life solo because they don’t remember enough of it to piece together who they can trust. And on Zenith, that’s not ever going to be a high number of people.

“Really,” Sammy responds with a roll of his eyes. “I just got stuck with him somehow.”

Ben sticks his tongue out in Sammy’s direction.

“I don’t know, I just think of it like – so many people have left their loved ones behind after being wiped and they don’t even know it,” Ben says, biting his lip. “I just think of Sammy and I as like – we got to keep each other around. And that’s great – that’s so much better than the alternative.”

They’re all quiet for a second, presumably thinking of who they’ve all left behind. Jack doesn’t even know their name, but he knows he’s left someone.

He taps the ring on his left finger when Ben looks over at him and his face immediately falls. “I know what you mean. Trust me.”

Ben shakes his head. “I don’t know if I’m lucky not to have one or not. Sammy does –”

Sammy grimaces at Jack, holding up his own left hand, where there’s a silver ring not dissimilar to Jack’s.

“I try not to think about it,” Sammy says, not making eye contact with either of them. “All I know is that Ben doesn’t have one, so I’m not married to him – thank God.”

He breaks the tension well, and Jack has to laugh as Ben shakes his head with a betrayed expression on his face.

“I’d be a good husband,” Ben argues, but then turns to Jack. “But you get it. Shit like that. It’s easier to have someone with you to bear it, someone who you know you had before all the shit happened.”

“I agree,” Jack says, wishing not for the first or the last time that he had someone like Sammy or Ben in his own life. Maybe not _exactly_ like them – but yes, maybe exactly.

“Sammy and I are just, you know – you know, _always_ , man,” Ben explains, flapping his hand at Jack as he scrunches him his face as if searching for the right words. “I don’t know how to explain it, it’s just – _always._ Like we’re timeless. The weird thing is, I kind of feel it here too – like with you and the Captain especially, but with Troy and Mary, like – I don’t know, it’s like a muted version of that _always._ Do you guys get that? Or am I just imagining it?”

“I blocked out any of this shit ages ago,” Sammy says first, bitterness seeping into his voice. “But I’ll give you that there’s something about this crew – but personally, I think it’s because we all might have a chance of remembering each other this time around. So we want to make it mean something. I mean, I do.”

Jack thinks he imagines Sammy’s eyes flickering up to his own, because less than a millisecond later they’re focused back on the dark skies ahead of them in the window.

“That’s fair,” Jack says slowly, wondering if that’s it. “Though I know what Ben means. Something seems…familiar.”

“Well, if we fail, it won’t seem familiar for long,” Sammy mutters, a sardonic twist to his mouth that Jack doesn’t want to see.

“Failure’s just not an option then,” Jack responds immediately and Ben grins at him.

“Exactly! Think positive, you cynic,” Ben nudges Sammy’s shoulder with his own, leaning in close to his personal space. “Don’t think of what could happen if it goes wrong…”

“Think of what could happen if it goes right,” Jack supplies when Ben looks at him for support, and Sammy half-smiles at them both before there’s a voice from the doorway that Jack had left open when he entered the bridge.

“Well, I’m sure if all goes right, you’ll be back to killing people in a few weeks’ time,” Mary says frostily from the door, barely looking at Jack as she passes him by from where he’s leaning against the console to hand a stack of papers to Sammy.

“Codes on the first page to download into your comms, but the captain wanted to have a paper copy as a back-up,” Mary explains. “But this is our route for when we head into the Ring tomorrow.”

“We’re a bit ahead of schedule,” Sammy tells Mary as he pulls the papers toward him, narrowing his eyes down at them. Jack wonders if he needs glasses, and can immediately see a clear picture in his head of what Sammy with glasses would look like. They’re horn-rimmed and glint when he turns his head in the suns. “Might be hitting the outer rim of the Ring a little earlier than planned.”

“Well, be careful,” Mary says, her eyebrows furrowing. “It might not be smooth space before then.”

“What do you mean?” Ben asks, flipping through the console. “I don’t see anything approaching – anything from the direction of the Ring, at the very least.”

There’s some more discussion between the three of them, but Jack can’t hear it, because something crystallizes in Jack’s mind, a fact that he didn’t know was there.

“Asteroids,” Jack interrupts whatever’s going on and all three turn to look at him with expressions ranging from confused to worried. “There’s an undocumented asteroid belt just below the Ring with an asteroid so big it has its own gravity field.”

Ben’s jaw drops and Sammy curses under his breath, and then again, louder and more emphatic.

“Are you sure?” Mary asks, white-faced. “I – that sounds right – all I could remember is that there was _something_ wrong with this area.”

“I’m sure that’s it,” Jack says, trying to reach further back into the recesses of his mind to find where that information sprung from, but there’s nothing there but a black hole boring into his memories.

“Is that even possible?” Ben’s clicking through the map on the console with quick fervor. “Its own fucking _gravity field?”_

“Jack’s right,” Sammy says suddenly, as if he just came to the realization himself, and he turns to Jack with huge eyes. “I don’t know how I know that, but I do. He’s right and unless we’re careful, the ship is going to –”

Jack grabs the comms unit from behind Sammy’s head without thinking about it. “Captain, Troy, get the fuck to the bridge. Emily, is there a fucking asteroid belt here?”

Jack curses a few more times, pacing back and forth until Emily bursts into the room, Troy hot on her heels, her eyes ablaze and afraid.

“I heard rumors,” Emily takes three quick strides across the room to lean over Ben’s shoulder to check the map, “about some bad shit out here, and the word asteroid was tossed around. But my client assured me that if there was such a thing, it was in an entirely different quadrant. Stupid fucking egotistical, arrogant –”

“We don’t know if it’s here yet or not,” Mary says. “I’m going down to the engine room to make sure that the ship can take a pull into its own gravity field.”

“Its own –?” Emily practically turns purple, and Ben stands up quickly to put a reassuring hand on her shoulder that seems to relax her slightly.

“I think it’s going to be too late for that,” Sammy says slowly, and they all turn to him, Jack feeling an endless pull of dread in his gut. “I can see unidentified objects appearing just beneath us on our radar. Entirely hidden up until now. God fucking dammit.”

“The Science Institute must have put them there, used their technology to create that thing,” Emily says slowly, her hands balling into fists. “And the Federation made sure it wasn’t on any maps. That’s the only explanation. They really do not want visitors.”

“Good thing we’re going to get the hell out of this and pay a motherfucking visit, then,” Ben says, kinder than Jack would’ve expected those words to sound, as he pats Emily’s shoulder.

“Ben,” Sammy says carefully, “I’m gonna need you to sit the fuck down, because if this thing has its own gravity field, then we’re gonna need to brace ourselves.”

Ben doesn’t make it to his seat.

There’s a sudden _boom!_ followed by some of the most intense pressure Jack can imagine, he hears Emily shout, he’s hit the floor before he knows it, and Sammy’s screaming above him “Someone, someone get your hands on the other thrusters and pull _up!”_

Jack thinks he might be the closest, and forces himself upward. The gravity isn’t pulling his body to the ground, thankfully, only the ship downward toward the asteroid, since the ship contains its own artificial gravity. Jack can see it now, out the window – a hulking grey mass just beneath them waiting to dash them to pieces.

Jack reaches overtop Ben’s seat to grab what he’s ninety percent sure the thrusters are and he hears Sammy say “Yes, that’s it, up, up!” and Jack pulls.

The pressure seems to subside slightly after that, letting the room stop feeling like a sauna, but Jack knows that if he and Sammy let go of their levers for even a second, that won’t be the case anymore. His hands tighten around the controls.

“Here, here, I’ll automate it,” Ben says from next to him, back on his feet but still clearly shaking as he ducks under Jack’s arm to program something into the computer. “You guys can let go now. This isn’t going to last longer than thirty minutes, but…”

Jack lets go, hands tremoring, and he and Sammy meet eyes. He sees his own terror reflected in Sammy’s face as he mouths _thank you._

“Can you program it to last longer?” Troy asks, peering down at the asteroid beneath them. There are quite a few smaller space rocks surrounding them on all sides, but the one beneath them looks like it could be its own tiny moon.

Ben shakes his head, biting his lip hard enough that Jack sees droplets of blood. “No. With a gravity that powerful – we’ll be lucky if it lasts even that. And then the system is going to be completely shot for our return trip. You know, assuming we can even make one.”

“We can find another way out, what we need to focus on is _now_ ,” Emily says, cool and calm and collected and everything a captain should be under pressure. Jack doesn’t envy her for it. “Alright, thirty minutes tops then. How do we get out of the gravity field before then?”

“We’re already using full power,” Sammy says slowly, pursing his lips together. “Even if Ben and I pulled the thrusters as high as they’d go, the ship might only raise up another couple of meters in the air.”

“How else can we get out of a field of gravity?” Emily looks around the room, and Jack can tell she’s trying not to panic. “Anyone? Mary? Is there anything we can do –”

Mary sighs with a shake of her head. “No. If this was a planet’s field of gravity, it would be different. But this gravity field is designed specifically to creep up on you. It’s small and hard as hell, and from that movement down – I think it’s designed specifically to kill ships, not help them land. It’s not just gravity, it’s synthetic killer gravity.”

“So what you’re saying is we can’t escape,” Jack qualifies to which Ben quickly responds “No, no there has to be something.”

“No, no, you’re not getting what I’m saying,” Jack says. “There’s no way to _escape_ – if we don’t want to be killed by the synthetic killer gravity, then we have to kill _it_.”

Five blank faces stare back at him.

“You can’t _kill_ gravity,” Troy says slowly. “Or. Well. I mean. I’m not the expert here. _Can_ you kill gravity?”

“I think the real question here is not whether it’s scientifically possible, but whether _we_ can kill gravity,” Emily says, and Jack doesn’t like the way she’s looking at him. Like she knows something he doesn’t. “Jack? Can you?”

Jack hesitates. “What’s the weapons situation like on this ship?”

“How the hell can a _weapon –_ ” Sammy starts but Jack cuts him off.

“Like Mary said. It isn’t a planet,” Jack exchanges a glance with Mary, who’s nodding slowly at him as if she understands what he’s getting it. “It’s a synthetic force. Synthetic forces can be disrupted in ways natural forces can’t. If this ship had a weapon large enough to blast a hole in that asteroid – no more gravity pulling us down.”

“There isn’t a weapon, though,” Emily says, and Jack’s heart sinks. “This isn’t a military-grade ship by any means, and it’s an old model. All we have are two decommissioned cannons at the ship’s top, but they’re ancient and rusty and I don’t even know if they’re connected to the ship’s inner maintenance –”

“Sounds like it’s time to recommission it,” Jack says. “Get me a space suit and I’ll scrape the rust off myself.”

“Jack, it’s too dangerous,” Emily begins, and Jack suddenly realizes that she’s reached out and has a hold of his hand. Like she cares. Like she really cares about him.

“You hired me to be in charge of weapons,” Jack tells her. “So let me be in charge of weapons.”

“I’ll get down to maintenance,” Mary says, her eyes sharp on Jack’s but no longer mean and distrustful. They’re promising. “I’ll get her ready to blow from down here. But you might have to connect some wires if –”

“Four memories of technical school,” Jack tells her, heart hammering in his chest. “I hope they’re the right ones.”

Mary gives him a white-lipped smile. “Better get a move-on, then. We’ve only got twenty-six minutes left.”

“You’re not doing this alone, Jack,” Troy of all people says next. “I’m going out there with you.”

Emily interrupts, “No, no, it should be me –” along with Ben’s “No, Troy, let me go –” and Sammy’s “please, _none_ of you –” but Troy talks over all of them, eyes heavy on Emily.

“You hired Jack here for weapons. And you hired me to keep the rest of you safe,” Troy says. “So let me keep Jack safe by going out there with him – and keep the rest of you safe by keeping you here inside. I ain’t taking no for an answer.”

Emily’s blinking back tears. “There’s not enough time for us to argue over this – both of you get to the hanger, I’ll get the schematics of the ship. Sammy, Ben, make sure we’re ready to get the fuck out of here if the opportunity arises.”

“We need to be able to help in more ways than that –” Ben’s voice is hot and Emily shushes him.

“This is too much to ask of them –” Sammy starts after him, fierce and hot with eyes blazing, but Jack interrupts whatever he’s about to say next as he pulls his wedding ring off his finger.

“Here,” Jack presses the ring into Sammy’s hand. “I don’t want anything to happen to this. You understand, right?”

Sammy half-looks like he wants to kill him, but his eyes are tender and understanding. “I get it, Jack. But please don’t –”

“Here,” Troy says, a half-smile on his own face as he pulls a ring off of his own finger. “Benny, you watch out for mine, alright? Now Jack and I have gotta go and make sure we get out of this mess alive – all of us.”

Emily’s face is pale, but her eyes are fierce as she nods at them. “Get down to the hanger. Now.”

Jack doesn’t need her to tell him again, but he feels like he should have said a better goodbye to Sammy and Ben, both of whom stare after him with the utmost terror on their faces as he runs out.

* * *

 

“Alright, the compartment is open, but the cannon won’t come out, there’s something in the way,” Mary’s voice says in Jack’s ear.

He and Troy exchange a look as the two of them tread carefully across the top of the Dryad toward the empty space that the machinery had just slid away to reveal. They have to be extra careful, what with the gravity pulling them downward now that they’re not in the ship. The pressure is extreme, but the ship’s inner gravity is still affecting the two of them, so Emily doesn’t think they’re going to be pulled down to the asteroid.

Presuming they don’t fall down the side of the ship.

Jack would rather avoid that.

“Emily’s right,” Troy says from where he’s standing closer to the opening, peering down into it, his voice fed through Jack’s suit. “It looks like it’s rusted into place.”

“Good thing you’re two strapping, fit young men with some power tools,” Ben’s voice echoes through the comms next. “Well, I mean, Jack’s thirty-eight, I guess that’s not that young…”

“You’re a child,” Jack informs him through the comms. “And alright, Troy. Get the torch going on the machinery and I’ll make sure there’s nothing else stopping it from getting out.”

Jack steps carefully down into the crevice where the cannon is hidden, and immediately feels a release of the asteroid gravity’s pressure. He pokes around the sides of it – the rust is certainly bad, but all that matters right now is the rust on the joints and the rust on the blasting part.

Jack went to tech school, he certainly knew what the blasting part was called at some point, but for now, it’s the blasting part.

He’s feeling better until he sees the board of wires and how each colored wire is hanging loosely, no longer plugged into the mainframe.

He quickly relays the information to Mary, who curses, though not at him, which is probably a good thing.

“That’s what I was afraid of,” Mary says. “The wires are all hooked up right now on this end, but I’m gonna have to talk you through it on that end. I’d say I should get the hell out there with you but – we won’t have the time for me to do that and be here to blast the damn thing.”

“Talk me through it,” Jack says, keeping himself calm by watching Troy blowtorch the rust for a couple seconds. “I can do it, I just need some help.”

“Find the red wire,” Mary says immediately. “Hook it up to the square-shaped knob. Do you see it?”

“Just a second,” Jack says, and moves to the box. His hands are going to be clumsy in his spacesuit, but it’s the best they’ve got to work with, especially now that they’re down to fourteen minutes. “Okay. I see it.”

He takes the wire, and it shocks him as he puts it in the right socket, but he can barely feel that right now. “What next?”

Mary coaxes him through finding the correct places for the next six wires, but then she says “And then the white and yellow –”

“There isn’t a white and yellow,” Jack interrupts, not letting panic overtake him yet but coming pretty close. “There’s only one wire left – it’s green.”

“Shit,” Mary’s voice is tight. “But it’s the only one?”

Jack answers in the affirmative and Mary says “We gotta take that chance, Jack. There’s no other way. The rust is gone, the cannon is in position – we’ve got nine minutes. This is our only shot. Plug it in and get the hell back in here.”

“Do it, Jack,” Emily’s grim voice dovetails her. “Like Mary said – we’re all dead in nine minutes anyway. I’d rather we were all together when it –”

Her voice cuts off suddenly. Jack thinks she might be crying. Jack also feels like he wants to cry.

Jack swallows, and gets the green wire into the place Mary directs with her shaking voice.

“Good job – now get the fuck out of there and follow Troy back to the hanger,” Mary says. “See you soon.”

Jack doesn’t give himself time to decompress, his heart beating so loudly he thinks he may die of it, and starts to pull himself up and out of the compartment, climbing up the side of the cannon to make it possible. It’s bumpy and clumsy, and he’s practically crawling to make it to the top –

And then suddenly, he loses his balance as he pulls himself the rest of the way up and starts to slide.

The pressure is back, the absolute mind-numbing pressure of the asteroid’s gravity, and if Jack falls off the side of the ship there’s absolutely no way of a rescue operation, the ship can’t move right now and Jack would be smashed to bits on the asteroid before it could anyway, but Jack is grateful if he dies doing something like this, something good, something that will save a group of good people going to do a good thing, he inexplicably thinks about Sammy as he blindly grasps for something to hold onto –

And then there’s a hand holding him up and Troy’s there, pulling Jack upright and off the side of the spaceship and into himself, almost tumbling backward with the effort but Jack won’t let him, that’ll just put them both in danger, and he manages to steady them both and keep the two of them on their feet.

“I told you to get back inside after you finished torching,” Jack says, and he can see Troy’s face just barely through both of their helmets.

“I’m here to protect you,” Troy says simply, as if nothing else could’ve ever occurred to him. Jack feels a rush of affection, but he can’t act on that now, not with so little time left. He and Troy stumble together across the top of the ship as the hanger bay doors slide open at the opposite end.

Jack takes it one step at a time, and then he and Troy are falling into the ship’s interior now that they’re fully back within its gravity.

He pulls his mask off as the doors close and notices that Troy’s done so as well, and before Jack can even react, Troy’s hugging him fiercely. Jack doesn’t even think, just puts his arms around Troy right back and tries not to burst into tears right there.

“You did good,” Jack says into Troy’s shoulder. “Thanks for being out there with me.”

“Couldn’t let you go at it alone,” Troy says as if it’s obvious, and Jack hugs him even tighter.

“You in?” Jack can hear the crackling in his comms device from Mary. “Alright, I’m blasting it. Sammy, Ben, get ready to bolt.”

“C’mon,” Jack pulls Troy upright, and they have to lean on each other to make it up. “Get your suit off, let’s get up the bridge with the rest of them.”

They make it to the foot of the stairs before the entire ship quakes with the effort it takes to get the cannon to fire, and Jack can see a bright orange, fiery stream out the window. He prays, he prays to whoever’s listening that this works.

There’s a sound out the window that sounds like a combination of glass shattering and a volcano erupting, and he can hear Ben scream from above them, “ _Go!”_

The ship jolts, and for one second, Jack thinks it’s not going to work.

But then the ship zooms, and Jack is thrown backward by the impact of going into such a high speed at once, but honestly, it’s fucking needed right now.

“Yes!” Troy says, shaking Jack as they pull themselves to their feet. “Yes, yes, yes!”

They hug again, even tighter this time now that they know they’re _alive_ and Jack can hear screams and whoops above them, too. Troy grabs his shoulder and they head up the stairs together into the bridge, where Emily launches herself into Troy’s arms the second Troy gets into the room.

Jack’s not offended. Troy came in ahead of him, and the second Emily lets go of Troy she embraces Jack, and Jack doesn’t remember ever being hugged like this before.

And the best part is, he has a real chance of remembering this hug.

“Always such a fucking daredevil,” Emily whispers into his ear and Jack says “What?”, not quite understanding.

“You’re such a daredevil,” Emily says as she lets him go, wiping angrily at her eyes, and Jack figures he must have misheard her the first time. He’s not in the mood to analyze it, because Mary comes into the room behind them. Jack turns to smile at her and tell her good job, but then she throws herself into Jack’s arms too.

“I’m sorry I’ve been such an asshole,” Mary says into Jack’s collarbone, which is as high as she comes up. “I just thought – your reputation – you’re not supposed to care about people –”

“I care,” Jack says, dazed, holding her closer. “I care, Mary. I do.”

“I have to go check and make sure all the comms systems are still up, that’s the most important thing right now,” Emily says after she’s finished embracing Mary as well. “But – God, I’m so happy and grateful for you all. Mary, do a maintenance check sometime in the next few hours to make sure we’re still good to go but – God, not yet, take a break, you _earned_ it, you genius.”

Emily beams at them all with teary eyes as she rushes from the room, and Jack finally has time to turn to the two pilots, who both are white-knuckled against the controls, but they both loosen up as Emily leaves and they appear to be out of immediate danger.

“Don’t put that shit on autopilot yet,” Mary warns. “I’ll hug you from behind.”

“That was amazing,” Ben says, wide-eyed, patting Mary’s arm as she hugged him but looking at Jack and Troy.

“Fuck you guys, that was the most dangerous thing I’ve ever seen,”  Sammy’s decidedly less positive, and he’s looking at Jack as if he’s afraid he’ll slip and fall off the ship again any moment.

Jack remembers thinking of Sammy before he almost fell, which he’d forgotten in the adrenaline, and his heart races uncomfortably.

“It worked,” Jack says instead. “We’re all alive – and safe – and _alive_ –”

He still can’t quite believe it.

“Here, Troy, here’s your ring back,” Ben stops clenching his fist around the controls long enough to hand Troy his wedding ring, which Troy takes into his hand with a kind of tenderness. “Do you know who you’re –”

Troy shakes his head sadly. “Nah, Ben. I don’t. Just ‘cause I bartend doesn’t mean no one’s ever wiped me down. I like to think she’s out there waiting for me. That she’ll walk into my bar someday and recognize me on the spot. But I’m still waiting.”

Mary pats Troy’s shoulder. “I know how you feel. I just want a man in the crowd to see me and go – oh. That’s her. But I haven’t found him yet.”

“Here, Jack,” Sammy says softly, half-turning to him as he opens his palm where he’s got Jack’s ring clenched around his fingers. “I –”

Sammy cuts himself off, and Jack doesn’t know why he’s looking from Jack to the ring and back again, and then again. There’s a confusion in his eyes that makes Jack anxious.

“What is it?” Jack asks, and Sammy shakes his head.

“Did I get this screwed up with mine?” He asks, mainly to himself, and he slides his own ring off his finger. It’s silver like Jack’s, but Jack can’t think of how he’d mix the two of them up when one was on Sammy’s finger and one was in his head. “I don’t –”

He stops himself again, eyes growing wider as he stares at the two rings in his hand.

“What is it?” Ben asks, but Sammy doesn’t turn to him. He only stares at Jack.

“These rings are the same,” Sammy says, voice hushed.

“Like from the same jeweler…?” Troy asks, looking between the two of them confusedly.

“No,” Sammy says, and God, he’s practically shaking. “Same ring, same make, same size, same design – same fucking _engraving.”_

“Let me see,” Jack says, feeling as if time has slowed down to a stop, the adrenaline from before replaced with some kind of feeling that Jack was sure he’d never lived through before, like everything was happening too quickly and too slowly all at the same time.

Sammy puts the two rings in Jack’s hand. Their fingers brush slightly as he does so.

He’s right. Jack can’t tell which ring is his, the two are completely identical, down to the etching on the inside of the ring, the engraving that Jack had read over and over and over again to remind himself that there was _someone_ out there to live for.

_For as long as we both shall live – SD 77440_

“The date,” Jack says faintly. “The same fucking date.”

Someone peers over his shoulder at the rings. He thinks it’s Troy. He’s not really sure. Everything seems very hazy except Sammy staring at him, eyes wide and mouth slack and Jack thinks he might be shaking.

“Are the two of you…married?” Troy says softly from behind Jack.

“I don’t know,” Jack responds, feeling a bit like he’s on autopilot himself. “I – I don’t remember. I’ve always had the ring as long as I’ve been on Zenith. I don’t think I had it before then. That’s all I know.”

“I’ve just – I can’t remember not having it,” Sammy says, blinking at Jack as if seeing him for the first time. “Other than when I was a kid –”

“Sammy,” Ben says, his voice having a strange quality, and Jack thinks that Ben’s staring at him the same way Sammy is, with that combination of fear and terror and wonder and maybe, maybe is it happiness, maybe? “You’re both from Loak Peak – remember?”

“Right,” Sammy says faintly, and Jack echoes the sentiment.

There is horrible, awful, incredibly awkward and painful silence until Ben speaks again.

“Troy, you wanna help me fly this bird while Mary goes and does her maintenance checks?”

“Sure thing,” Troy says, and Jack thinks he’s smiling at him, but he’s not sure. “Sammy, maybe you and Jack can go down to – to the kitchen, or…”

Sammy stands up, but Jack doesn’t know how present he really is in the situation. Jack himself feels barely present, like his mind and body aren’t even slightly connected anymore.

“I’ll go – do that then,” Mary says awkwardly, her smile fleeting as she darts out of the room before Jack and Sammy can.

They walk side by side, silent but somehow less awkward now that no one else is around, and the two rings are still in Jack’s hand. He stops Sammy wordlessly in one of the corridors to hand him one – he doesn’t know which one – and Sammy takes it, staring down at it.

They’ve stopped walking at this point. Jack isn’t sure when that happens, but after a near-death experience and whatever the hell _this_ is, he’s feeling very wobbly, so he lets himself slide down against the wall without saying anything. Sammy, thankfully, follows his lead.

“I thought of you,” Jack says after it’s been silent for too long. “Right before I thought I was going to fall, I thought about you, and I didn’t know why. I guess I know why now.”

He thinks he laughs, but he’s not sure.

“When I first came on the ship last week,” Sammy says, his voice a little rough around the edges, “I thought there was something about you, something I couldn’t – couldn’t quite put my finger on.”

“I felt the same way,” Jack says.

“There are so many missing chunks in my brain,” Sammy says, his voice shaking slightly. “I can draw it out by years. I can remember before I was sixteen. And then I know a few things, here and there, facts and figures and such, a few scattered memories without a timeline or context, but when it comes down  to it, almost nothing. And then just – _really_ nothing. A blank space. A black hole. And then Zenith and all of that bullshit that I can hardly keep track of.”

“You think I’m in the black hole?” Jack asks, half-smiling but Sammy shakes his head.

“That. But the hazy part, too,” Sammy says. “I know you’re there. I can feel you’re there.”

Jack feels like he should do something – take Sammy’s hand, maybe – but he doesn’t.

All he can do is say “I know you’re there, too. I have – pieces of memory. Like certain things were just sliced out of something otherwise whole. I remember half of most everything, and I think the other half is the half that you’re in. But I do wonder – I think I have a black hole too, where there’s just…nothing. Maybe our black holes line up. Maybe someone wiped us just so we’d –”

“Forget each other,” Sammy finishes, and he turns. So does Jack, and they look each other in the eye for the first time. Sammy looks terrified, but there’s something else there too, something Jack thinks might be – well, he doesn’t know. “Who would do that?”

“Someone in this fucked up solar system,” Jack says, shaking his head, and Sammy half-smiles at him through heavily lidded eyes.

They’re silent again until a certain gnawing feeling in Jack’s chest causes him to speak.

“I’m sorry it’s me,” he says and Sammy cocks his head at him like he doesn’t know what Jack’s saying. “I mean – I’m an assassin. A mercenary. But it’s not just that. I don’t know, I don’t remember you.”

“I’m not sorry,” Sammy says, and it’s firm in a way that his other words haven’t been. “I don’t really care, honestly. You weren’t – whenever you knew me, I know you weren’t. Zenith fucks us all up. The _wipe_ fucks us all up. I’m sure I’ve done things I’m not proud of. I’d love to remember what some of them are but –”

His voice cracks and he quickly clears his throat. “I pictured it so many times. Who you might have been. I’m glad it’s you, Jack.”

“I’m glad it’s _you_ ,” Jack echoes. “I don’t know what I pictured but – you’re better. You’re _real._ You’re a real person and not just someone I imagined.”

“I always knew it had to be a man,” Sammy says, a little jokingly, as he turns the ring around in his hands. “Or at least I hoped.”

“Me too,” Jack says, and they both laughed at that. “But whenever I looked at it, it always just – reassured me. That someone loved me before I became…whatever I am now.”

“Are we different people, do you think?” Sammy asks, and Jack doesn’t know what the repercussions of that question are.

All he can say is “I really hope not. But how can any of us know?”

“Do you think Emily knew? When she hired us?” Sammy asks, though it’s not a pressing question, he says it like an observation, like it’s the least important thing.

“No idea,” Jack says honestly. “I think she knows more about us than we do, that’s for sure, but – I don’t know. Does it matter if she did? How can you possibly _explain_ that to someone? That they’re married to someone they don’t even remember?”

It’s a question that twists at Jack’s insides, and he can barely look at Sammy. He feels like he should say something that’s gnawing at him – stay with me, be with me, please hold my hand. But he doesn’t feel like he can.

He and Sammy aren’t strangers. Jack can feel that in the depths of himself, that he _loves_ the guy who’s turning his ring around in his hands like it’s precious. But he also doesn’t know him. He loves him but he doesn’t know him.

It feels awful, but it feels better than anything else Jack can remember.  

“What do we do now?” Jack asks softly, needing an answer.

“Well,” Sammy says, and he lets out a sound that sounds like a cross between a laugh and a sob. “I think we make sure that we get some serious dirt on the Science Institute. Because it just became a _lot_ more important to me that we’re not wiped down again.”

He says it like a joke. They both laugh. There’s nothing else _to_ do.

* * *

_“So,” Jack says, letting his hand curl around the nape of Sammy’s neck, lightly playing with the soft hair where his neck and head met. “All bets are on. How much on Ben crying?”_

_“It’s_ Ben _,” Sammy sits up to stare down at Jack with a smile playing on his face. “Of course Ben’s going to cry. It’s our_ wedding _. He’s probably cried six times just this week thinking about it. He’s making a toast that Emily’s gonna have to finish for him because he won’t get the words out. Barely a bet, no dice, Wright.”_

 _“As if Emily’s gonna be able to finish it without crying either,” Jack points out as Sammy lays back down, situating himself in the crook of Jack’s neck. He’s always fit so perfectly. “Honestly, everyone there is gonna cry._ I’m _gonna cry.”_

_“Me too,” Sammy says after a second, not looking at Jack, and Jack has to laugh at how ridiculous he is._

_“Ooh, so embarrassing,” Jack teases, and Sammy acts like he’s going to shove him away. “Oh, c’mon, pushing me out of bed on the night before our wedding? Low blow, Stevens.”_

_“The night before our wedding,” Sammy repeats, and apparently he’s decided against throwing Jack out of bed because he’s rolling onto Jack’s chest now to grin at him again, wide and beaming and so so happy, and Jack doesn’t know how he ever lived without that. “It’s been a long time coming.”_

_“Forever,” Jack agrees. “But it’s here and we’re doing it and Ben’s gonna sob his way through it –”_

_“We were so lucky, you know,” Sammy says, dipping his head to kiss Jack’s jaw before snuggling up against him again. “To find this ship. These people.”_

_Jack hums in agreement, bringing a hand up to stroke Sammy’s hair. After they’d finished school and got their licenses for the Federation, they knew they were never going to be on a crew without the other, but it had always come with the assumption that they’d have to hide their relationship from anyone else on the ship._

_It wasn’t that it wasn’t acceptable in ordinary society, but on a Federation ship, there were more rules, more regulations, more prejudice against any relationship deemed non-traditional. On a planet, they would have been fine, but on a governmental ship, it was an entirely different story. With the wrong captain, the backlash could follow them for the rest of their lives._

_But Emily Potter wasn’t the wrong captain._

_“We have people who love us, who are going to see us get married,” Jack says softly as Sammy curls even closer to him. “You know, it was always gonna be you and me against the world – but I’m glad it’s not. I’m glad we’ve got our friends here with us.”_

_“Would’ve married you no matter what,” Sammy mutters against Jack’s neck. “No matter who was happy or angry or anything. We’re lucky for our friends Jack, but – well – not to be sappy or anything, but we’re about to get married so I have a right. I’m luckiest because I’ve got you.”_

_“Always,” Jack promises him. “I don’t know what I’d be without you, Sammy. I’ve loved you…lifetimes. Always will.”_

_“Me too,” Sammy whispers. “Alright, enough sappiness, we’ve gotta be endlessly sappy tomorrow, and we’ve gotta sleep to prepare for that. Ben’s gonna be on our backs all day about flower preparations and the cake and everything –”_

_Jack laughs. “Sure you don’t want me to go bunk up with Troy tonight? Mary says it’s a curse on your marriage to spend the night together before the wedding.”_

_“Let Mary be superstitious,” Sammy snorts, which was exactly the reaction Jack expected. “She and Tim spent the night together before_ their _wedding and look at them now. In love as ever with two great kids. If that’s what I get for spending the night with you…well then, I can’t wait to be cursed.”_

_Jack can’t not kiss him for that._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also: Go read quietlittlevoices' X Files AU series, The Other Side. It's literally my lifeblood and I'm Dying Over It constantly. Cool? Cool. Will be back with the next chapter soon hopefully!


	4. All stories are the wrong story when you are impatient.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was a real bitch, guys. So I knew the update wouldn't be for awhile because I was on vacation for most of the week, but then I had to come home and Deal With Some Shit for the past three days that I wish I didn't have to be around for. And now I'm extremely sick and miserable but managed to finish the last bit of the chapter today. So bear in mind that literally all of this was written as I've been getting steadily sicker and sicker, and try to forgive any minor errors.
> 
> I think the last two chapters will be easier to do (ie: fewer action scenes) so hopefully I'll have them up soon as long as I start feeling like a human being! Hope you like it, thanks for reading!

Ben can’t take his eyes off of the Ring.

He supposes that’s a good thing – a pilot should probably be paying pretty close attention to their surroundings just generally – but this isn’t the right kind of attention, the kind that matters to pilots. Ben can’t stop staring because the Ring just _shines._

It’s synthetic, Ben knows it’s only like that because nearly every piece of the Ring is man-made and there’s nothing natural about it, but even if the sweeping purple and silver rings of Lasca were made in a laboratory, that doesn’t stop them from being beautiful.

Lasca’s completely uninhabitable and has been for nearly all of history within the human occupation of this system, rejecting all attempts at terraforming. The human inhabitants occupy the series of similarly human-constructed space stations that litter the Ring and make it what it is – the most expensive place in the whole system.

And Ben’s guided the Dryad to head right for the center, the largest of the fourteen space stations, and the most infamous. Ben can’t help but shudder when he thinks of something as horrific as the wipe coming from such a breathtaking place.

“You okay?” Ben turns to see Sammy looking at him a bit concernedly. It’s probably a mark of their friendship that Sammy could notice Ben in the face of staring out at the twinkling lights of the Ring.

“Fine,” Ben tells him, letting an easy smile come to his lips. He’s the optimist here. Always has been, or so he likes to believe. “It’s just – wow.”

“Yeah,” Sammy agrees, turning away to stare out the bay windows, but Ben can tell from his clouded eyes that he’s barely seeing it.

“Are you nervous?” Ben asks, pretending to busy himself with enlarging the map in front of them so the question can be simple and innocuous and a way to make conversation and not stemming entirely from the hammering of Ben’s heart.

All Sammy does is nod, he doesn’t look at Ben. He hasn’t been making a lot of eye contact this past week, with anyone – well, almost anyone, he never really stops staring at Jack.

Sammy’s been on fucking edge, an anxious mess who’s not eating, not sleeping, and Ben doesn’t know what he can do to fix that even though he desperately wants to.

Ben doesn’t blame Sammy for any of this – if Ben had stumbled on a husband…

Ben can’t help but think this was anything but stumbling, though he’s keeping that theory quiet for now. It’s the last thing Sammy needs to deal with on top of everything else.

“It’s gonna be okay,” Ben says, shoving down anything else to reach over and squeeze Sammy’s wrist. Sammy grimaces in Ben’s direction, but his hand curls up to brush against Ben’s. “It’s all gonna be alright.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Sammy says, his lips twitching like he was trying to make a joke and it came out wrong and sad and depressing. It’s alright. Their lives are wrong and sad and depressing, this week has made that clearer than ever.

“Hey,” a voice at the bay doors greets them and Ben knows it’s Jack without turning around. Sammy practically jumps though, staring at the space behind them. Ben turns to see Jack smiling, looking equally as nervous, as he hangs awkwardly in the doorway. “What’s the ETA?”

“Passing through the checkpoint in about ten, though that should only be of concern to us here at the bridge,” Ben answers, because he knows that Sammy kind of short-circuits when Jack comes into a room and can’t function at normal levels. “Another fifty-five until we touch down at the Science Institute. If everything, you know, doesn’t blow up in our faces before then.”

Ben wishes he hadn’t said that, because Jack’s face goes grey at the mention of things going wrong. He steps into the room more fully, eyes widening as he stares at the Ring out the window.

“I feel like I’ve seen it before,” Jack says, eyes creasing together. “Have you?”

“I would hope I’d remember lights like those,” Ben says, having absolutely no idea if that’s true or not.

“No idea,” Sammy’s a bit blunter than him, but Ben takes notice when Jack’s hand brushes against the back of Sammy’s neck.

Ben thinks they spent the night together last night. He can’t know for sure, but Sammy certainly wasn’t in his own room. Ben had gone to check on him and his bed had been empty. Ben hadn’t felt anything more than a twist of disappointment that he couldn’t sit up with his best friend on the night before what was likely the most dangerous day of their lives.

Then again, this could be run of the mill, old hat, Ben might never know for sure.

But Sammy’s taking everything roughly, not that Ben’s surprised. Sammy doesn’t really like to talk about his feelings, but it was only three days ago that he’d let Ben hold him while he cried, saying _God, it hurts. It hurts so badly just to look at him. I’d do anything to remember. I can’t forget him again, I can’t._

Ben can’t decide if he’s upset that he doesn’t have a wedding ring linking him to anyone or if he’s thankful that he’ll never have to feel the misery that Sammy’s going through right now.

“I’ll let Emily know she should expect the checkpoint,” Jack says quietly, but Ben quickly cuts him off.

“No, let me go, you take my spot,” Ben says, springing to his feet. “You two should be alone before –”

He awkwardly stops himself, turning red, but the look on Sammy’s face is more thankful than anything. He wishes that were the whole truth, and it’s certainly part of why he’s offering, but he definitely needs to talk to Emily before shit starts going down.

“Thanks, Ben,” Jack says, smiling at him, very genuine. Ben knows that he knew Jack too, can feel it in the familiarity of that grin, and it gives him hope.

Ben side-steps him as Jack takes Ben’s seat, bending his head closer to Sammy. Ben feels a little bad at already interrupting, but he’s never been good at curbing his impulses or not saying shit that needs to be said.

“Hey guys?” Ben asks, a little nervous as they both turn toward him. “If we fail today….just know that I’ll leave with the two of you. So don’t go without me, alright?”

From the twin looks of discomfort on their faces, Ben knows that they’d at least talked about it. The possibility of failing and what they’d be forced to do to remember each other. Ben likes to think that Sammy would’ve woken up Ben in the dead of night to drag him along with no warning and that’s why he hadn’t been let in yet, but he had to make sure that they knew, that Ben wouldn’t stand for being left behind.

“Hopefully that won’t be necessary,” Jack says, his look all determination. Sammy though, his eyes are bit more tender on Ben’s.

“No ship or resources – I couldn’t put you in danger like that,” Sammy starts, his voice small, and Ben has to cut him off right there.

“I’d rather die with you than live without you,” Ben isn’t the type of person to beat around the bush, especially since they might not make it out of today to even have this debate tomorrow. “If I’m wiped, I’ll think you left me, or that you’re dead, and I’m not putting myself through that. You’re my brother, and I’m going with you. Sorry to break up the honeymoon, but I’m your third wheel forever. Got it?”

Jack smiles at him, all affection, and Ben thinks Sammy’s refraining from flipping him off from the contained grimace on his face that’s trying hard not to become a grin.

“Thanks, Benny,” Sammy says, a little gruff and not making eye contact.

 “It’s Ben and you know it,” Ben rolls his eyes. “I’m going to talk to Emily now. So say your sappy goodbyes, and now would be a great time to kiss if you haven’t worked up the courage to do that yet. Don’t look at me like that, Sammy! You seem like the types to put it off until the last second!”

“Like your conversation with Emily?” Sammy suggests and Ben feels himself turn pink under Sammy’s gaze.

They do know each other, even if all of the memories aren’t there. Muscle memory and all that – it gets talked about when it comes to skills and not really people, but Ben’s muscles know how to see through Sammy even if his brain can’t connect the dots, and apparently Sammy’s do, too.

“I’ll see you soon,” Ben says as a goodbye, ducking out of the bridge so he doesn’t have to answer any questions.

It isn’t that he doesn’t want to be transparent, but the anxiety is ramping up right now. They all might die on that hunk of metal they’re flying toward, get taken in as lab rats for the Science Institute’s endless experiments, or get stolen away by the Federation, or any number of heinous things Ben hasn’t thought of yet.

He doesn’t want to add any unnecessary stress on top of that.

That was the excuse Emily gave too, back when Ben had confronted her about Sammy and Jack when they’d first realized, if she’d had any idea. Because shit like this didn’t happen on accident. Ben believed in fate like any good optimist, but his suspicions about Emily knowing more than she let on had started cropping up from the second they arrived onboard the ship.

Every piece of Ben’s entire body, every piece of that muscle memory, had screamed at him the first time he saw her laugh, undignified, at a joke Troy told while they were sitting in the kitchen on the first day aboard.

_I know her._

The feeling had only grown from there.

Ben goes upstairs to Emily’s quarters, knocks loudly on the door, and waits, heart beating so loudly he feels like it’s in the back of his mouth and he’s going to throw it up any second.

“Benny,” Emily greets him with a smile when she opens the door, but Ben can tell that she’s nervous, the ends of it are too strained. He reminds himself that they’re all nervous right now and that it doesn’t necessarily mean anything.

“It’s Ben,” Ben reminds her and her smile becomes even more forced. “Checkpoint is coming up, but Sammy’s handling it. Fifty minutes until we touch down.”

Emily nods at him, rolling her shoulders back. She’s probably more stressed out than anyone else, Ben knows. This is her plan, after all, her mission.

“Is everything alright?” She asks him, and her smile seems more genuine. She even reaches out a hand to touch his elbow, just for a moment.

“I don’t want to detract from the mission,” Ben says, biting his lip before continuing, “and I know that you might not be able to answer my questions, since I’m sure you’ve been wiped to hell and back too, even if it’s not as much as the rest of us. But you have to tell me before I go put my life on the line for you. How do you really know me?”

Emily’s eyes go soft around the edges, her smile wavers like she’s going to cry, and oh shit, that’s not at all what Ben was expecting.

“Even if it’s like you said, and we just worked together the once,” Ben says quickly. “I just want to know the details. Because it feels like you know us all better than you say. Somehow, I don’t know how, you do. I’m not gonna fuck up and get distracted from the mission, I’m not even gonna push you hard – but I _have_ to know, Emily. Please tell me.”

“You always did hate being left in the dark,” Emily says, not quite meeting Ben’s eye, but her smile is all affection and nostalgia. “Every time I’d say something was _need to know basis_ , you’d pester me until I told you.”

Ben suddenly finds he can’t swallow. “I – uh – what? How do you –”

“You aren’t…” Emily’s smile twists uncomfortably. “You aren’t a pilot I hired once for a job, Ben. You were my friend. A very long time ago in a very different place. But you were my friend, someone I knew completely.”

“Just me?” Ben’s brain is having trouble catching up to his ears, but he makes it eventually. “Or Sammy too? Or…God, Jack?”

“Troy and Mary too,” Emily says, her eyes steadfast on a spot behind Ben’s head. “Don’t – don’t sound the alarms and let everyone know. Not right now when so much is on the line.”

“That’s why we’re here,” Ben says, the pieces somewhat coming together in his mind even with all of the blank spaces. “You knew us all –and you brought us together. Did we – know each other – how did we –”

“It’s too much to say right now, too much to even think,” Emily says, and goddammit, that’s not good enough for all of the possibilities racing through Ben’s head. Isn’t it better if he just knew and didn’t have to speculate? “If we make it out of today, I promise I’ll explain everything.”

“Just in time for you to possibly forget,” Ben realizes, a sick feeling twisting in his stomach. “Maybe forget _everything_ with the wipe coming for you if we make it back to Zenith without the info. Emily, is it – is it written down? I have to know, I have to –”

“Benny,” Emily interrupts him, and Ben looks down to find her squeezing his hand in her own. “I’m sorry, but there are more important things right now. The reason you don’t know any of this is because of the wipe. And today, we have a chance to strike at the heart of the people who made it possible. Can you just focus on that for now? Please? For me?”

“How can I do anything for you when I don’t know you?” Ben asks, mostly out of desperation, because he just doesn’t _understand._ He knows that it’s the Science Institute’s fault much more so than it’s Emily’s, but he can’t help but obsess over what she could possibly be keeping a secret. “I don’t know anything about you, Emily.”

“But I know you,” Emily says, and her grip around his wrist grows tighter. “I know you better than you know yourself right now.”

She takes a deep breath, and Ben notices the tears forming in her eyes.

“You’re from Falsica, a tiny little village on the northernmost point on Waz. You pretend to hate how short you are but you secretly like it when Sammy uses you as an armrest. You grew up just with your mom, you never knew your dad and you think he probably disappeared to a life on Zenith and forgot you even existed. You swore you were never going to become like him.”

Emily pauses, tears now freely flowing and Ben realizes a second later that he’s crying, too.

“Your mom’s your biggest hero,” Emily continues with a wavering voice, “she taught you how to fend for yourself and never take no for an answer. I check up on her, every so often, just to make sure she’s still alright with you. All you ever wanted to do was help people, make the world a better place, you took that so seriously. But that never stopped you from running out of the medical bay to get Sammy to teach you how to do the worst kind of flying tricks that would make everyone onboard sick to their stomach. You more than anyone, you’d throw up every time and say it was worth it. And we’d all laugh at you and say you were ridiculous, but we loved it. We loved you. So much, Benny, we loved you so much.”

“Who’s we?” Ben asks, because he can’t possibly think of anything else right now. He feels like his chest is on fire.

Emily lets go of Ben and gestures around herself, her laugh sounding more like a watery hiccup, and Ben realizes what she means at the same time that he realizes that he misses her hand on his own.

Everyone – not just her, not just Sammy, but Jack, Troy, and Mary. Everyone here. Everyone here had known him. Everyone here had loved him.

Ben has more questions now than ever, but his tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth when he tries to ask them.

“It’s okay that you don’t know us now,” Emily says quietly, wiping her eyes. “It’s okay that they don’t know, either. I made my peace with being the only one to remember a long time ago. It’s enough that you’re all here, that we can all do this together.”

“The wipe,” Ben says slowly. “We were all wiped down. Except you.”

Emily looks as if she’s ready to say something else, but she just nods at him, a miserable expression on her face. “That’s why I found you all again. So we could – could get revenge. If we can do nothing else, we can get revenge on what did this to us.”

“That’s not enough, though, how can that be enough?” Ben asks, panic setting in seconds later. “Sammy and Jack are _married_ and can’t even remember a thing about each other. Troy has someone waiting for him – hell, so does Mary. Holy fucking shit, you just told my _mother_ is alive, I thought she was gone, I thought I’d never see her again – how can revenge make all that better?”

“I know it can’t,” Emily whispers, not making eye contact. “But it can do something.”

God, Ben doesn’t want to do this. He wants to run away. He wants to get the fuck out of here and never look back, get Emily to tell him how to find Mary and Troy’s people, take him to his mom, tell Sammy and Jack every detail of their relationship, and get them the hell out of this life and escape into whatever deep space holds. Even if it’s death, it has to be better than this.

 Unless –

“Is there a cure?” Ben asks, time seeming to slow down as the possibilities run rampant in his mind. “A cure for the wipe? In the Institute? Getting this info might stop the Federation from using the wipe, but it won’t be of any help to Zenith, any help to _us._ We have to figure out how to reverse it. I could find out how.”

“Benny, it’s too dangerous,” Emily says immediately, her eyes going wide. “At least the info we need will be in the computers, in correspondence, that’s lower security – you’d have to get to the labs to get access to their research, and that’s the highest security there is. You can’t risk that when everything is already so risky – especially because a cure doesn’t exist.”

“But the beginnings of one could,” Ben starts to argue, but Emily cuts him off.

“Why would they try to cure something that makes them endless money when they could develop something else that makes them endless money?” Emily asks, misery flashing across her face. “Trust me, Ben, I’ve thought this through. This is the only plan that makes sense, and I’m sorry and I wish things were different. You have no idea how much.”

Ben swallows painfully, because he’s sure she knows what she’s talking about. She knows more than the rest of them – about everything really, and Ben does find that when he reaches down deep, he trusts Emily Potter. His muscle memory tells him that.

“Besides,” Emily says, her smile affectionate but still with the kind of sadness that Ben can’t stand. “Sammy would never let you do something that dangerous.”

“He wouldn’t,” Ben agrees, but there’s already something formulating in the back of his mind at the mere mention of Sammy, because even if he trusts Emily, he can’t just give this up. “You’re right.”

“I usually am,” Emily laughs, her eyes soft, and she hesitates for a moment before moving forward and kissing Ben’s cheek.

She steps away, and Ben puts a hand up automatically to his cheek, not sure what he’s feeling but knowing it’s a lot.

“It’s time to go, Benny,” Emily says, taking his hand in her own and squeezing one last time. “We have a mission to complete, something bigger than any of us. I know you understand that. You always have and always will.”

She lets go, walks down the hallway, and doesn’t look back. Ben stares after her, a million questions circulating through his head, but he has to turn that part of his brain off.

He only has forty minutes now to make the most dangerous plan he can possibly think of.

**-**

The forty minutes pass faster than Ben needs.

Ben and Sammy are pressed up against one another in the cargo hold, Ben on top of Sammy in the approximately two feet of spare space in the hold that Emily reserved for hiding the pair of them.

Not talking is the most unbearable part for Ben, because he desperately wants to make some snarky comment about Sammy’s breath, but he can’t, he has to stay completely still until they hear the bay doors close.

Sammy’s breathing in his ear, and that helps Ben’s heart from hammering out of his chest which is the opposite of a good thing right now. The Science Institute has the kind of technology that can detect how many hearts are beating aboard a ship.

Emily has some presumably deeply illegal technology making it possible to shield the six by six area of the cargo bay from the scans, and Ben can hear the fan-like attachment whirring on the floor next to them, hopefully making sure the Science Institute doesn’t know two pilots are still on the ship.

The Science Institute is strict, insisting on crews of no more than four landing on the station, and only in the same of research and touring, nothing else. It’s supposed to take years to even get a permit, but apparently Emily’s client has had this in the works for longer than any of them could imagine.

Ben has endless questions about that too, but he’s too busy focusing on the intricacies of his batshit insane plan to think too much about anything else.

 Ben can hear Emily start to speak outside the hold, and he strains himself to try to catch anything she’s saying.

“….yes, thank you for letting…..such an honor for us to be here today….”

Ben wishes he was one of the four out there, but it was him and Sammy who had to make sure that they could gun it out of here once they acquired the info, and that required staying on the ship.

Mary needed to be one of the four to go out, because they couldn’t leave unless the shields were disabled. They couldn’t possibly count on Emily getting the info without arising any suspicion, and they certainly weren’t going to be able to fly away without raising any alarms.

Hence, breaking down the shields. And Mary was the only person onboard with the expertise to do that. She was going to peel away from the tour group with an excuse about wanting to ask the techs about their transportation policies to avoid suspicion.

Troy was there for standing guard and protection, and while Ben did understand why Troy had that job and not him, it still stung slightly. Jack, of course, was the only one of them who had the skills to do what was necessary if things got very sticky very quickly.

Ben reaches up to squeeze Sammy’s shoulder when he thinks of Jack. He didn’t see them say goodbye. He hopes they kissed. They deserve to remember a kiss if something –

Ben can’t think like that.

He catches a voice he doesn’t recognize say “yes, yes, Captain Alvara, right this way…” followed by the metallic zooming and final thud of the bay closing, the little light that had been getting through the cracks of cargo door vanishing and leaving them in shadows.

He feels Sammy sigh in relief beneath him and Ben rolls off from on top of him.

“Give it a minute,” Sammy whispers hoarsely, training his eyes on the whirring machine next to the door. “Just to make sure.”

They lay in silence and darkness awhile longer, holding their breaths, and Ben waits for Sammy to cue them to leave. It’s the least he can do, seeing as how he’s about to do something that Sammy’s not going to approve of in the slightest.

Finally, Sammy reaches into his pocket for the two portable comms units he’d kept off until now, and silently passes one to Ben.

Ben shakes his head and Sammy send him a questioning look.

“I’m going out there,” Ben whispers, and quickly claps a hand over Sammy’s mouth to keep him from doing anything stupid, like yelling at Ben. Sammy’s glaring at him, Ben can tell even in the semi-darkness, and the fact that their faces are only inches apart.

“I have to get to the lab,” Ben tells him and hopes Sammy doesn’t bite his hand off. “Emily’s orders.”

Sammy shoves Ben’s hand away, his eyes narrowing. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Two part plan,” Ben says, swallowing his fear and nerve and guilt about lying to Sammy, but he has to. Sammy will understand. Well. If Sammy doesn’t kill him first. “Jack’s going to disarm the tour guide and get them to take he and Emily to the mainframe. That’s how we’ll get the info. But there’s another part of the plan that Emily just told me about – she wants me to get to one of the laboratories and steal their research as well, as much of it as I can.”

“What the fuck?” Sammy’s holding tight to Ben’s wrist in the next second presumably to keep him from leaving, but at least he isn’t yelling. “Even if that were the case – why you? You’re not a tech.”

“Better me than you,” Ben volleys back. “You don’t know _anything_ about tech. I may not know enough to hack the communications system like Emily and Jack can, but I can sure as hell find my way through lab security and steal some physical evidence of whatever kind I can. She thinks maybe it’s _all_ physical to avoid any hacking from elsewhere.”

“Like you could hack this place from elsewhere,” Sammy scoffs, but his grip has loosened, which Ben thinks is possibly a good sign. “But – God, Ben, that’s way too dangerous for you to do alone. Why would she ask that of you?”

“She’ll send back up if I need it,” Ben says, and decides to take the comms unit from Sammy to pocket it, just in case he really does need to call for help. “I promise I won’t do anything stupid.”

“Everything about this is stupid,” Sammy informs him. “Why the hell does Emily need the research anyway? What’s she hiding from us?”

“Nothing, nothing,” Ben says quickly, then corrects, “well, some things, I’m sure. But not anything that incriminates her in this governmental conspiracy mess. This was – well, my idea.”

“Of course it was,” Sammy says, his mouth a tight line, but his eyes are affectionate even as they’re rolling at Ben. “Why –”

“Because we have to know how to fix this, not just stop it from happening to anyone else,” Ben says. “Sammy – this could be your only chance to remember your husband.”

Sammy blinks rapidly at Ben, breathing heavily as if he can’t quite believe Ben’s doing this, but he should. He should know Ben by now. It’s been a long time, and they can’t remember most of it, but he should know.

“And it’s our chance to remember each other too,” Ben points out. “Everyone’s chance to remember what they lost. You know why I have to try. We all need this.”

Sammy doesn’t speak for a moment, but when he does, there’s a resigned finality to his voice. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“I hope so too,” Ben says with a shudder, because God he’s scared right now. “Go up to the bridge, get ready to jet off. If you have to leave without me –”

Ben can’t say the words, but he can’t swallow them either, all he can do is let Sammy lean over and touch his shoulder. And then Sammy leans in to kiss Ben’s forehead.

“Don’t do anything monumentally stupid,” Sammy says, voice thick as he pulls away, and Ben almost tears up.

“I’ll try,” Ben promises. He doesn’t know if he can keep it.

* * *

 

Ben rolls out of the ship bay and onto the cold, hard metallic floor of the Science Institute’s hanger bay.

He’s almost completely underneath the ship, there’s no way that anyone has noticed him at this point; he’s practically hanging under the long, jettisoned wings of the Dryad. He inches himself out, closer and closer, to get a good look at what’s going on.

It’s not as crowded as Ben had expected.  It’s a large bay, he can see at least a dozen other ships, though he thinks all of those ships are the uniformed belongings of the Science Institute; they’re the only guest ship. There’s a pod of techs just slightly to his right, the only human presence. If he can get across to the other side of the ship, he should be able to escape from the hanger unseen by using the huge amount of other ships to his advantage.

He slides across the floor to the opposite wing, trying to remember the details of the schematic of the Institute that had been in Mary’s notes that she’d handed Sammy last week. He’d poured over them at the time, and then again half an hour prior to now. There was no guarantee that they were accurate, but it was on-record for the Science Institute’s existence.

At the end of a day, it’s a space station. And space stations have to be designed properly and filed with the correct agencies. Unfortunately, most of those agencies fall within the Federation, but Emily’s client had gotten at least _a_ plan, even if it wasn’t an accurate one.

And Ben knew which way he’d have to go to find laboratories, and hope they’d been labeled correctly.

He makes it out of the hanger quickly and quietly, and he doesn’t think anyone’s spotted him. Outside of the half dozen techs at the entrance, there aren’t any other human beings here. Ben wonders how many human beings actually live on this base of operations.

He makes it to the hallway, makes a sharp left turn, skirting along the side of the wall. He reaches for the comms unit in his pocket when he hears a noise, but it seems like it’s just the hydraulics of the station, because there are no other people.

He’s gripping the comms unit in one hand and one of Jack’s guns in the other – he’d taken it from Jack’s quarters the second Emily had left him alone. He wasn’t getting out of this without a weapon. Just because he had almost no concept of how to use it didn’t mean anything. He needed something to at least look like he had any modicum of power here.

He holds his breath when he hears footsteps, plasters himself to the wall, and he can hear two male voices talking in what sounds like the next hallway.

“ – yeah, we’ll have to test that before next week, I know Mr. Hill is going to need it soon.”

“That’s a problem, since we don’t even have the correct equipment –”

The voices sound like they belong in a lab setting, and Ben gives it twenty seconds before he starts to follow in their direction. They could be going for food or sleep but it’s doubtful, the Science Institute is extremely intensive from all accounts and doesn’t exactly treat their members like human beings with human needs.

The lab is likeliest.

Unless this is all some elaborate ploy to trap him – but Ben can’t think like that right now. All he can do is keep a tight hold on his weapon and follow the sound of the voices.

Ben tails them through seemingly endless hallways for the next five minutes, passing only a few doorways that the voices have thus far ignored. As far as Ben can tell, they’re heading in the same direction that the map in Ben’s head says the labs should be in, though he doesn’t know for sure.

He keeps track of the turns though, and he knows his way back to the hanger. That’s the most important thing to track.

Ben realizes that the voices are growing closer, and knows that he’s about to catch up with them. The door must be close here, and Ben can’t miss his chance to get access, he wheels around the hallway with his gun pointed straight out in full view.

The two lab techs are standing outside an open doorway, jolting in Ben’s direction as if they can’t quite believe they’re seeing him.

They both look young. Younger than Ben. Ben has a moment of feeling awful about doing this, but there are more important things right now, and anyway, Ben’s not gonna shoot.

“Go inside, don’t close the door,” Ben says firmly, evenly, trying to make his voice deeper. “I’m following you in. Don’t set off any alarms, don’t let anyone else know I’m here. Do as I say and I won’t shoot.”

“Alright,” one of the techs says slowly, warily, his eyes not leaving Ben’s weapon as he pulls his associate backwards with him. “We’re doing as you say. There are two more lab techs in here but they’ll also cooperate. Isn’t that right?”

Ben hears sounds of agreement through the doorway, and God, now would be a really bad time to die of a panic attack, and he makes himself step forward through the doorway, backing the two techs in.

There are two female techs inside, both with their hands up and staring at Ben not with fear, but more with shock that he’s even here. Ben supposes they don’t get a lot of visitors.

The lab isn’t large, it’s only four work stations. There are samples on each of the desks, all suctioned off in plastic bags. Some are under microscopes. Ben has a feeling of familiarity that he has to stash for now.

“What do you want?” One of the women asks, her voice high but firm.

“Information,” Ben says, trying to keep his hand steady and firm as he points the gun, even though he desperately wishes he could just shake and shake, he’s so scared. “Bag up your physical evidence, slides it over to me.”

The four techs all do as he says without reticence, though there’s still something extraordinarily off about them that Ben can’t quite put his finger on. He watches them do as he says, and he pockets fourteen different samples in his jacket before the end of it.

“Alright,” Ben says when he has them all and the four techs are still staring at him in a way that’s giving him really bad vibes. “I’m going to back away now and close this door. You’re going to –”

He doesn’t get a chance to finish, one of the techs launches forward and Ben thinks about shooting him for half a second but can’t, he can’t, he so can’t kill someone –

The tech hits the side of the table, where Ben can see a section jutting out, and then alarm bells start blaring all around him, red lights flashing overhead. The door behind him slams to a close.

“Good luck getting out of here now,” the tech says, breathless, smiling vindictively over at Ben when he still doesn’t shoot. “This place is getting locked down. You’re never getting out of here.”

“Don’t –” Ben starts, panicked, thinking desperately of Emily and the mission, hoping beyond hope that he didn’t jeopardize it. If he got out alive with these samples, that would be one thing if the mission failed. A bad thing, but livable. They needed _something_ – Ben just happened to think that a chance at finding a cure was worth it, since they’d never have a chance to come back here again.

“You’ll never pull that trigger,” the tech says, snide as hell.

Ben thinks it can’t get much worse when suddenly one of the female techs practically propels herself forward and practically on top of him, and Ben wrestles with her for the gun for all of five seconds before she yanks it from his grasp with surprising strength.

Oh, God, this is it, he wishes he had more time, more time with Sammy, a real goodbye with Emily, holy _shit –_

But the tech doesn’t point the gun at Ben. Instead, she wheels around toward her male counterpart, aims at his knee, and pulls the trigger.

The tech falls to the ground instantly with a scream, and writhes on the ground crying and Ben stares at the woman in shock.

“Shut _up_ , Greg,” the woman practically snarls.

The other male tech gapes at her. “Lily, what the –”

“Don’t make me shoot you, too, Pete,” The woman, Lily apparently, brandishes the gun in Pete’s direction. “Reagan, make sure Greg here doesn’t scream too loudly.”

The other female tech doesn’t look surprised at all, only grim and determined. “You got it.”

“What the hell is going on?” Ben finally finds his voice.

Lily turns to him, her long hair falling in her voice as she glares at him. “Don’t even get me started on you. I have no idea who you are but you’re definitely the stupidest person I’ve ever met. Breaking into the Science Institute? No one’s _ever_ gotten away with that.”

“Who the hell are _you_?” Ben shoots back, more confused than ever and Lily grimaces.

“Doesn’t matter,” she says. “Nobody, anymore. I’ve been wiped to the fucking sun and back, almost everyone who isn’t a higher-up here is. All of the low-level techs have no clue how we wound up in this hell.”

“I’m sorry,” Ben stares at her. He had no idea that’s what the Science Institute did to their members. He wonders if Lily, Reagan, and the others had consented to this and just don’t recall it, or they were forced into it. He definitely is likelier to believe the latter.

“If you don’t get out of here soon, that’s going to be you, too,” Lily tells him. “Do you have an escape route?”

“If I can get back to my ship –” Ben starts but isn’t able to finish, because in the next second, there’s a huge blasting sound from behind him and he practically collapses onto his knees from the blunt force behind him, winding up practically on top of Lily.

“Ben, are you in here?” A voice says behind him, and Ben pulls himself off of Lily to see the door blasted off of its hinges, slightly smoking on the ground with Jack Wright standing over it with a gun about four times the size of Ben’s looking like Ben’s knight in shining armor. 

“Where’d you find that thing?” Ben croaks at him as Jack tosses it to the ground.

“One of the guards,” Jack says, stepping over the door and tossing the gun aside like it doesn’t weigh a thing. “Sammy’s going to fucking kill you. Direct quote.”

He taps his earpiece.

“How’d you know I was here, anyway?” Ben asks and Jack rolls his eyes.

“Mary saw you in the hanger bay, genius – you’re lucky as hell you made it this far,” Jack says. “Direct quote from Emily on that one. We have to get out of here, come on.”

“Wait,” Ben says, reaching down to where Lily is leaning against one of the workstations, coughing from the rubble as she gets to her feet. “We have to get these people out of here.”

“Don’t bother,” Lily coughs, exchanging a look with Reagan. Reagan and Pete were too far away for the blast to knock them over, but they’re both kneeling over a still-screaming Greg. “We all have tracking chips implanted inside of our skulls. You’ll never make it out with us.”

“Who are you?” Jack blinks at her a couple of times, giving the other three a quick glance as well but quickly returning to Lily.

“Nobody,” Lily says with a wave of her hand. “It doesn’t matter. We’re trapped here. Get the hell out of here while you have the chance. Security in this place isn’t great just because there are only a couple dozen real supporters of the cause. The rest of us won’t chase you down unless you’ve got some zealot like Greg here.”

She gestures toward the ground. Greg’s still crying and writhing on the ground as Pete holds him still.

“Wait, hold up,” Ben says again. “Can you tell me – is there anything here that will help me reverse a wipe?”

Lily bites her lip, shakes her head. “No idea. They don’t tell us much. I hope so, for everyone else’s sake. But what happened to those of us stuck here isn’t ever being reversed.”

“What happened?” Jack stares at her like he’s trying to puzzle her out, but she just gestures out the doorway.

“You need to leave,” she says emphatically. “But if you make it out of here, spread the word about what the hell the Institute is doing, alright? You have to. This whole system being shot down is our only chance at escape.”

“Okay,” Jack says, and Ben wonders what the matter is, because the look on his face is almost slack-jawed. “I – I will, I promise.”

“We’ll come back, we’ll find a way,” Ben promises her as well before having to pull on Jack to get them out of the still smoking doorway.

Jack seems to clear up once they’re away from the techs, his grip on Ben’s shoulder growing tight as the two race down the hall, only stopping to pick up Jack’s huge discarded gun, presumably because they might need it again.

“Other than the tour guide and six guards, I don’t think anyone other major players are in this wing,” Jack explains, his voice clear but a little gruff. “And with the lockdown, we’ll get extra time since doors either have to be unlocked or shot down.”

“The mission,” Ben pants as Jack drags him along to keep up with his pace. Jack is more than half a foot taller than him and he can’t quite keep the same pace without a little help. “You should’ve let me handle that on my own.”

“Emily’s got the plans,” Jack says. “Almost finished downloading to her device when the alarms sounded, and she might not have got everything but she got enough incriminating info. We just have to get it out of here now. And really, Ben? You’re more important than the fucking job.”

The comment makes Ben feel warm, but only for a half a second, because then there’s a bullet whizzing over their head and a shout of “ _Halt!”_

“Shit,” Jack curses throwing his gun down. “Gotta lose the extra weight, there shouldn’t be another door between here and the hanger, get going!”

They start sprinting, and Ben knows that they’ve only got two more hallways to go before they’re in the hanger, which could be all kinds of trouble.

He wished he’d thought to ask before if the others had made it back onto the ship, but has to assume they have, he can’t think anything different, he can’t even let himself consider –

Another bullet flies overhead as they enter the hanger and explodes against one of the Institute’s ships overhead. Ben catches a glimpse of the Dryad in the distance, Emily’s red hair visible from the bridge as she cocks a gun of her own, Troy behind her as they both stare down the group of techs at the gate.

Ben makes eye contact with Emily, thinks she might be the most amazing thing he’s ever seen, and Emily smiles for half a second before suddenly she wheels the gun from the techs to their direction.

“ _Jack, get down!”_ Emily practically screams as another gunshot rings out.

This one doesn’t explode overhead.

Jack, who’s been pulling Ben along all this time, suddenly starts to fall forward and Ben has to run in front of him to half-catch him, pulling Jack’s limp body up against his shoulder.

“I’m okay, I’m okay, it’s okay,” Jack’s croaking voice stops Ben from doing anything truly stupid like running after whoever’s behind them. There doesn’t seem to be anyone there now. There had been another gunshot, Ben remembers vaguely as he tries to keep Jack upright. “Just hit my shoulder.”

“ _Just_?” Ben could cry as he tries to pull Jack forward with him, but it’s hard when taking a hold of Jack’s side means coming away with bloody hands and Jack can barely keep himself standing upright.

Ben loses track of everything for a long while as he tries to propel Jack onward with him. There’s no one coming behind them. Emily. Emily had shot another bullet. She’d hit her mark. There’d only been one. Maybe two. Maybe she’d fired two bullets and hit them both. Ben could barely think right now.

He only realizes that he’s in the world again when Troy’s in front of his face and on Jack’s other side, hauling Jack with the strength that Ben doesn’t have anymore. Ben comes back into focus just in time to run up the stairs to the Dryad’s cargo bay, being pulled into it by Mary.

Ben collapses on top of Mary, sobbing, but not for long, only until Emily screams from behind him _“Sammy, get the fuck out of here!”_

“I need to help,” Ben says weakly, trying to pull himself off of Mary. He can’t turn around and look at where he can hear Jack crying out in pain behind him while Troy shushes him. “I need to get to the bridge to help Sammy.”

“No,” he hears Emily say behind him, her voice shaky, but she’s pulling Ben off of Mary in the next second. Mary’s face is tearstained but still solid. “Mary, you go help Sammy. Ben – you need to get this bullet out of Jack.”

“I – what?” Ben wheels around to stare at her. She comes sharply into focus, as does everything else. The grey cargo bay streaked with Jack’s blood. Jack on the floor, choking as he cries. Troy leaning over him, stroking his hair back.

Emily, standing over them both with terror in her eyes as she stares at Ben, half-collapsed and near exhaustion on the ground.

“You don’t remember this,” Emily says, her voice steely, “but you are a doctor. Certified by the Federation themselves. You went to medical school. You did your residency onboard my ship and you have gotten a bullet out of me before. You can do it again. You _have_ to do it again.”

“I – I don’t know –”

“Ben, Sammy is in my ear asking me what the fuck is going on,” Emily said, her clear voice wavering as a few tears fall. “This is your best friend’s husband. You were best man at their wedding. You cried in your toast and I had to finish it for you and you didn’t stop crying for several hours afterwards. You think Jack hung the moon, you love him so much, he’s your brother as much as Sammy is. Now get that bullet out of him.”

Ben can’t feel half of his body, is barely in touch with anything around him, but he gets up, stumbles forward until he’s where Troy is, leaning over Jack.

Jack grins up at him, laughing though he chokes every other second on the pain. “Hey, Benny. Don’t look so sad, huh? This isn’t your fault.”

Oh, God, Ben hadn’t even thought about that yet. If it hadn’t been for the worst plan in the history of the system, Jack would never have gotten shot. If it hadn’t been for Ben, Jack would be fine. Oh, God.

“Are there tools?” Ben finds himself asking. “Can – can he be drugged up so he can’t feel anything?”

“I’ll run down to the medical bay,” Troy says, pulling himself up and racing out of the hanger.

Ben can’t think of what else to do right now, so he takes Jack’s hand in his own, holding tightly.

“I’m so sorry,” Ben says, choked up. “I’m sorry, I was so stupid, I –”

“I would’ve done the same thing,” Jack says, squeezing Ben’s hand. “Exact same, alright? I almost did, you can ask Sammy, I was gonna skip out and try to find anything that would help erase a wipe. He told me not to be a fucking lunatic. I needed to be with Emily anyway. I’m glad you did it, Ben.”

“You won’t be glad if you’re dead,” Ben chokes out and Jack shushes him.

“Flesh wound, you’ll fix it,” Jack says, and then squeezes his eyes shut with another shout of pain. “Troy got those drugs yet?”

“I don’t know how to do this,” Ben whispers as he stares down at Jack. He can kind of see where the bullet tore a hole in his shirt, has a vague idea that he needs to cut the cloth away before he does anything, but after that, he’s lost.

“Muscle memory,” Emily whispers as she kneels down next to him. “Intuition. You did this for ten years, Ben. It’s all there – it’s all there somewhere, even if it’s locked away. Your hands will know what to do. Shut your brain off so they can do the work.”

Troy’s back, he’s handing Ben a – a something. Ben can’t think about the names. He shuts his head off, gets a needle, and the drugs that Emily’s saying something about, and pushes it into Jack’s other arm.

From there, it’s a blur. Ben can see the tools in his hands, but doesn’t think about using them. He just moves. Makes himself do something in every second, not even thinking that it could be right or wrong, just _doing_ it. All instinct. Nothing else.

He thinks he asks Emily to get water at some point. He can’t remember for sure. By the time Troy’s tying up the wound with the bandages he’d brought up from the med bay, and Jack’s mostly still, breathing heavily but still and whole.

He isn’t sure how long it’s been, how long it took and how long he’s been sitting there just staring at Jack, leaning against Emily, crying against Emily’s shoulder, when Sammy finally stumbles down the staircase, red-rimmed eyes and shaking shoulders.

That wakes Ben out of his stupor.

“Jack?” Sammy’s voice is raspy. “Oh, God, is Jack –”

“It’s alright,” Ben hears Emily say from next to him as Sammy falls to the ground between Ben and Troy, staring down at Jack with the kind of fear in his eyes that makes Ben feel sick at ever endangering Jack in the first place. “Ben’s got him.”

Sammy reaches blindly in Ben’s direction, and Ben doesn’t think he’s ever heard Sammy cry like this before, fully-fledged, bone-shattering sobs against Ben’s shoulder, folding him into his arms as he says _thank you, thank you, thank you._

They’re alive, Ben reminds himself as he buries his head against Sammy’s shoulder. They’re all alive, and all together, and maybe that means there’s hope.

* * *

_Ben wakes up choking on his own blood._

_It takes him ages to remember, his brain is moving so slowly, only being able to focus on anything but the metallic taste going down his throat, and the near-darkness of the cell block doesn’t help._

_Cell block. Right._

_Ben forces himself upwards, his head pounding as he spits out the blood pooling in the back of his mouth. He thinks the blood is from his mouth and nose, though he can’t be sure. The pain in his side tells him there’s a knife wound there, too, though he can’t see how that would end up in his mouth._

_He thinks it’s been four days – he doesn’t know for sure, it gets hard to keep track when he’s in and out of consciousness, when he’s being dragged across the compound to room after room, dark figure after dark figure asking him question after question._

_The blood started appearing when Ben stopped answering the questions._

_He wasn’t going to give his crew up – what little of them remained in the outside world, he had no idea. But if they could run, if they could escape, then Ben couldn’t be the person giving out incriminating information about whereabouts._

_As far as he knew, it’s just Emily. Just he and Emily are in this hellhole, and hopefully everyone else made it out alive._

_Ben can’t think otherwise._

_He doesn’t really register the clanging in the cell next to him, the sound of the guards throwing a body to the ground, too busy curled up on the musty and blood-spattered cement ground, trying not to sob, but then he hears coughing similar to his own in the next cell, with that awful wet noise like there’s blood coming up._

_Ben freezes, wondering if he’s projecting the sound and wishing that someone was here to comfort him. It’s a selfish wish, after all; he wants everyone else to have made it out alive._

_Then he hears a croaking voice. “Hello? Jack? Ben?”_

_Ben forces himself upwards so fast he makes himself dizzy. That and creates a hell of a stabbing sensation in his side, but the rush of adrenaline, fear, and also relief blocks most of it out._

_“Sammy? It’s me, it’s Ben,” Ben heaves himself toward the side of the cell. It’s almost black in the block, he can see the outlines of only six other cells, and the one closest to him is the only one that appears to have an occupant._

_An occupant who Ben can fuzzily make out even in his pain and with the tears in his eyes. Sammy’s crumpled on the ground, one of his arms is a bandaged bloody mess and he has healed slash marks across his neck that make Ben want to cry on the spot._

_But his eyes are the same as ever, wider and more terrified than Ben’s ever seen him, and he inches his body closer to the bars where the two cells meet._

_“Ben,” Sammy gasps, and Ben thinks he might be smiling as the two of them grasp hands through the bars. It’s not enough, the slashes of metal prevent them from really touching, but their skin can just brush against each other._

_It’s more than Ben thought he’d ever get again._

_“Sammy, I didn’t know if they’d gotten to you,” Ben says, feeling hot sweat and tears rolling down his cheeks. “When the ship was boarded at the Federation Headquarters – it was just Emily and I aboard, I didn’t know they took you, too. I’m so – I was praying so hard you’d be alright – and now we’re gonna die –”_

_“We’re not,” Sammy says quickly, his voice almost breaking as his fingertips fold overtop Ben’s. “It’s – it’s worse. They’re gonna – God, Ben – they’re gonna wipe us down. All of us. They got all of us.”_

_Ben can’t think. “That’s – what? That’s illegal.”_

_“What else can we expect from our corrupt government?” Sammy asks, his humorless laugh horrible, but now Ben’s trying to memorize the sound, beg it to stay with him._

_“I don’t want to forget you,” Ben can’t help but start to break down, sniffling and trying desperately to get closer to Sammy, but the bars just won’t let them. “I can’t, I can’t forget you, you’re my best friend, you’re my brother, I can’t –”_

_Ben chokes down his tears. He just wants Sammy to tell him it’s all going to be alright, that they’ll find a way out of this. He wants his big brother to protect him like always but he knows that it’s not going to happen this time around._

_“We’ll find a way,” Sammy says, and it startles Ben. Sammy’s always been a cynic of the highest caliber, the worst kind of pessimist, he’s not the kind of person to say something like that unless he means it. “We might not remember, but – but I’ll find you, Ben. I will.”_

_“How?” Ben asks, small and terrified, and he feels Sammy’s hand drop from his own on the bars. He misses the contact until he sees something Sammy’s holding up._

_It’s a rusty nail. Ben stares at it, not sure what Sammy’s going to do._

_“I pocketed this yesterday, as soon as I overheard what was gonna happen to us,” Sammy says quickly. “They were using it to do – to do_ this _to my arm.”_

_Ben wants to vomit when he sees how mangled Sammy’s arm is. Of course there’s the technology to fix something like that brand new, but it’s not coming for them in prison._

_“I’m gonna write your name on the other arm,” Sammy says, grim and purposeful and Ben’s going to vomit._

_“Don’t,” is all he can whisper but Sammy’s hand is trying to grip his through the bar again._

_“I’ll find you,” Sammy promises. “Wherever they deposit us, no matter how far away, I’ll know I have to find you.”_

_Ben sobs as he hears Sammy cry out as he scratches the letters on his arm, and when Sammy appears again in Ben’s purview, he has a smile on his face, horrible but telling Ben that it was okay, that it was worth it._

_“Slip it through the bars,” Ben tells Sammy, in his tone of voice that he knows Sammy can’t argue with. “I’ve gotta write yours , too.”_

_“Ben, no –” Sammy starts, panic in his eyes, but Ben stares him down until Sammy relents, passing the nail through one of the tiny openings between them._

_“Better odds,” Ben says as he grits his teeth and starts to carve an S._

_He tries not to cry this time, tries to be strong for Sammy, so he can show Sammy that he’ll find him too, no matter what, no matter how long, Ben’s not leaving in a world without Sammy Stevens._

_“See?” Ben pants when it’s all over, letting the nail drop to the cell’s floor. “Not so bad.”_

_“You might not remember,” Sammy says, voice breaking more by the second. “But I’m sure we’ll make it to Zenith eventually, I think that’s where everyone who’s been wiped ends up. It’s all you can do, really. So find your way – find your way there, if you can remember anything, find your way there, okay?”_

_“I will, I will,” Ben promises, and he’s about to try to ask if there’s anything else in Sammy’s cell that could be used as a potential weapon when he hears the clanging of the doors leading out into the Federation Headquarters._

_Ben quickly grasps Sammy’s hand, knowing that whatever’s going to happen next, they won’t be together. “Please, please, if you see Emily again – tell her I love her.”_

_“I will,” Sammy says, voice shaking, hand trying desperately to grasp Ben’s completely but it’s not going to work, it’s never going to work. “If you see Jack –”_

_“I will,” Ben says as the darkened room suddenly opens up to a lighted hall, two grimly dressed guards in all black marching into the cell block side by side. Ben almost wishes he were about to die instead, but he focuses on the pain in his arm._

_It’s his cell door they open, and Ben desperately claws at Sammy, saying “I’ll see you, I’ll see you soon, okay? I love you, please try to think of –”_

_Ben’s cut off when a guard gets an iron grip around his mouth, and oh yeah, this is how his mouth had started bleeding, the crushing sensation all too familiar._

_Ben doesn’t focus on that pain as he’s dragged out. He focuses on Sammy’s face, half-illuminated by the light from the doorway, blood and tears streaking his face, and Ben closes his eyes, he wants that to be the last thing he sees._

_Maybe it’ll help him remember better._

_Sammy Stevens, Sammy Stevens, Ben thinks to himself, focusing on the aching in his arm. Sammy Stevens, all that matters now is seeing Sammy again, finding him wherever they end up. Sammy Stevens._

_The thought follows Ben to a chamber where someone presses something cold and metallic to his head, but Ben won’t open his eyes, won’t let the last thing he sees in the life he has be a horrendous procedure designed to torment him._

_Sammy Stevens._

_Everything goes white._


	5. Now we are getting somewhere.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do I like this chapter? Unsure. It's weaker structurally, but also necessary. It would look better in a TV show than anything else, but unfortunately, prose is what I have to work with. Hopefully final chapter up by Monday? We'll see, we'll see. At least my ears are alive and somewhat well now.
> 
> Thanks for reading!!

Sammy wakes up to the sound of Jack coughing.

“Hey, hey,” Sammy says, his brain still catching up with his body that’s grabbing the glass of water on the portable table next to him, leaning forward and taking a hold of the back of Jack’s head to get him to drink.

Jack does, gulping the water down quickly, eyes still closed, not moving too much. His right shoulder is covered in gauze that Sammy’s already helped Ben replace once in the past day.

Jack’s finally in the med bay – he’d been conscious enough to move himself down here a few hours prior, but the move had exhausted him and he’d been asleep on the operating table ever since, mouth open just slightly.

Ben, after twelve hours of nonstop crying and shaking, is finally asleep too on the other side of the med bay in the single cot that takes up the left side of the room. He’s curled in on himself and sniffling in his sleep, whereas Jack has been extremely still, presumably because movement is too painful.

That’s left Sammy to sleep on the chair next to Jack, waiting to see if he can do anything to help.

“Is he alright?” A hushed voice asks from the doorway and Sammy looks up to see Mary hanging against the doorframe, dark circles under her eyes and lips bitten bloody.

“I think so,” Sammy says just as Jack cracks an eye open with another cough.

“Present and accounted for,” Jack croaks, trying to prop himself up with one of his elbows, but Sammy gently leans him back down. Jack lets him. “How’s everything on the bridge?”

“Emily’s flying her right now, though we should be out of range of the Institute soon,” Mary says, still not stepping into the room. “It’s a good thing we got that cannon working again, Jack – she’s blasted three Institute ships out of the sky. But we don’t think they have the manpower to send more after us, especially now that we’re in hyperspace. We’re gonna stop at Greenwich for fuel, get you to an actual hospital.”

“Ben patched me up nicely,” Jack protests weakly as they all turn to look at Ben. Sammy doesn’t think Ben’s ever looked smaller or more vulnerable than in his sleep right now, his face still streaked with dry tears hours after falling asleep.

Sammy also thinks Ben’s never been braver than he was today – or more fucking idiotic, but Sammy’s going to wait on telling Ben both of these things. Ben hadn’t stopped shaking for hours after getting the bullet out of Jack’s shoulder, Sammy didn’t need to exacerbate that any more.

“I didn’t know he was a doctor,” Mary says with a shake of her head, finally stepping into the room to sit at the edge of Ben’s cot, running an affectionate hand through Ben’s hair as he sleeps. Ben makes a little contented noise when she does, but doesn’t wake up.

“Neither did he,” Sammy says, still slightly in shock. Not that he doesn’t think Ben’s capable – he very clearly is, Jack being here and alive the proof – but that the muscle memory is still there, that Ben could have shown no trace of the memory until now but was still capable enough to operate on a patient after all this time.

Jack starts hacking again, and Sammy quickly gets more him more water.

“Thanks,” Jack whispers, smiling up at him. His eyes still look a little vacant, Sammy knows most of his body’s numbed up and that’s the only reason he’s able to hold articulate conversation, but it – it makes him happy, Jack looking at him like that.

He’d been so terrified, his adrenaline is still so ramped up from thinking about losing Jack so soon after finding him –

Sammy can’t think about that. Jack’s here, smiling at him, mostly whole. Sammy has to take it.

“Are you the right person to ask about what the hell happened to our mission back there?” Mary says, looking over at Jack with concerned eyes, as if she’s not quite sure whether or not Jack’s ready to answer questions yet. “Or if Ben…”

Jack sighs, and Sammy almost tells Mary that the questions can wait, but the truth is that he still feels in the dark about everything too, and waits for Jack’s answer.

“We’ve got something,” Jack says, his voice having a note of finality. “Something that incriminates the Federation. We definitely didn’t get it all, though – and I ran off to make sure Ben was safe before we finished downloading the info we _did_ get. Whether it’s enough for the client? You’d have to ask Emily.”

“She thinks it is.”

Sammy half-turns to see Troy come through the doors of the med bay. He looks the least weary, his eyes alert and nervous, but he smiles at them all nonetheless. Troy’s a good guy, one of the best, Sammy can feel already from these few short days with him; Troy can smile even in the worst situations.

“She thinks that she’ll persuade the client to take the info and leak it and let us all go,” Troy continues, but that makes something crawl in Sammy’s chest. It’s too uncertain, there’s nothing concrete. They could get back to Zenith and the client could wipe them all down on the spot.

And then everything would be gone. Including Jack.

Sammy realizes a second later that he’s holding Jack’s hand, fierce and tight. He feels too hot the second he notices, and can’t meet Jack’s eye, staring at the floor instead.

But not letting go either.

Sammy feels Jack squeeze his hand, weak but present.

“That’s not very solid,” Mary whispers, echoing what Sammy’s thinking. “Should…I hate to even say this. But should we mutiny? Take the share of money that we all already have, pool it, and try to get the fuck out of here? Get to deep space…”

“And do what with Emily?” Troy says, just a bit defensive, though obviously sympathetic to what Mary’s saying. “She’s a good person, a good captain, even if she knows a bit more than she lets on. Not to mention, we _gotta_ get this info out in the system, and if this client wants to take on the danger of doing it…well, the system’s just gotta know.”

“Not if it endangers all of us,” Sammy says suddenly, a fierce protectiveness eating up his insides as he squeezes Jack’s hand harder. “Not if we’re going to be wiped down again –”

“We need to know the full story.”

Ben’s voice is quiet, barely there, still a little shaky. His body is still curled around itself, but Sammy notices that his eyes have opened, and they’re looking right at him, wide and blue and more than a little terrified.

“Emily knows a hell of a lot more than she’s saying,” Ben says, sitting up, and Sammy notices again just how red-ringed his eyes are. “We all – we _all_ knew each other before this. And she _remembers_ it. What kind of deal has she cut in order not to be wiped all this time? I – I can tell that Emily is a good person, with a good heart. I _know_ that. What I don’t know is what she’s done to stay alive. And it might be dangerous, and she might be in the pockets of people like the Science Institute in order to keep her memories. If she cut some kind of deal –”

“Do you really think she can do that? Or that the Science Institute or Federation would _let_ her?” Mary asks, biting her lip. “God, I mean….I want to trust her. But she knew what she was doing at that place. Maybe it’s because she’d been there before.”

“It’s not right,” Troy says suddenly. “Us talking about her behind her back without giving her room to explain. Benny, get on the comms, see if it’s safe for her to come down here and talk. She owes us an explanation, but we owe it to her to let her explain before castin’ any judgments.”

Ben nods at Troy, reaching around Mary for the comms unit attached to the wall.

Sammy looks down at Jack as Ben says “Emily? When it’s all safe, get down to the med bay. You made me a promise before we got to the Institute, and we’re all going to need you to follow through on that.”

Jack smiles at Sammy, mouths _it’s okay,_ moves his hand just slightly, so instead of cupping his hand, their fingers are intertwined.

They sit like that, just looking at one another, until Emily appears in the door to the med bay with a grimace. It might look like an attack, all five of them here staring at her and waiting, but Troy’s right – she owes them an explanation.

Sammy’s heart beats uncomfortably quickly. He doesn’t know if he’s going to like what’s said next, about anything. All Sammy wants to do is get out of this life, remember Jack, keep Ben safe. Emily might make those things harder with whatever she says next.

“How are you feeling, Jack?” Emily says, bypassing all of the stares to come stand next to Sammy, taking Jack’s other hand in her own.

It’s moments like this that Sammy thinks that Emily can’t possibly have ulterior motives, her sweetness just shining through.

“Living,” Jack grins at her. “Thanks for motivating my surgeon over there.”

Ben blushes under the proud looks he gets from nearly everyone in the room – and no one’s prouder than Sammy, even if he’s the only one not giving him that look. He’s already thanked Ben enough for one day, he doesn’t want to boost Ben’s ego even further.

“Benny’s a good doctor,” Emily’s eyes are on Jack, but they go soft at the mention of Ben.

“How many people here have I operated on before?” Ben asks suddenly, his voice at once tight and accusing but also curious. Emily springs back from Jack to look at Ben, survey him closely, as she moves to lean against the countertop opposite of him.

“You dug a bullet out of my stomach,” Emily says slowly and Sammy stares at her. “And Troy took a knife wound to the arm once. Those were your biggest surgeries, though you’ve treated us all before. Mary used to get a bad cough –”

“Hold on,” Sammy interrupts. “What are you saying? That Ben was our doctor? How the fuck did we all know each other?”

Emily holds his gaze for half a second before looking up to the ceiling with a sigh. “It’s a long story.”

“Get started then,” Ben tells her, not without kindness, but very bluntly. “You promised me.”

“I did,” Emily smiles at him, more than a little sad. “Alright. I suppose I’d better start at the beginning.”

She moves to sit at the end of Jack’s bed, looking somewhat small and fragile, but with a unique kind of strength as she clears her throat. “I became a Federation Captain straight out of Academy training.”

“I’m sorry – what? You’re _Federation_?” Ben gapes at her, and even Sammy feels a jolt of mistrust at that, not sure what that means, but Emily quickly shushes him.

“I’m not anymore,” Emily says quickly. “And wipe those looks of your faces – we were _all_ Federation. We all went to the Academy, we were all assigned a ship. The same ship. We were a Federation crew in charge of making supply runs to Federation planets and answering distress calls while we were stationed on the planets. That was our job – for five years. I was a Federation Captain, yes, but Troy – you were a Federation Commander. Sammy, you were a Federation-certified pilot, Jack and Mary were Federation-certified techs, and Ben’s medical school was within the Academy.”

Sammy stares at her, his mind telling him not to believe her. There’s no way. A petty crook like him would never have been Federation-certified of all things.

But his instincts, his muscle memory, is saying something very different. Something that sounds like _that’s right, that’s me._

“Me? A commander?” Troy is the one who looks the most surprised. “I – I tend bar, Captain, I’m not…are you sure you’ve got the right….”

Emily smiles at Troy, wide and affectionate. “Troy. You were the best second in command I could ever ask for, alright? You’re not just a bartender. You never have been.”

 “A commander…” Troy repeats, looking more than a little dazed. “But we were all – we were all together? On a ship? For how long?”

Emily’s smile becomes fixed. “Five years. Five….really wonderful years. It felt like we were making a difference – doing something really honorable….but of course, it was more than just that. You were all my friends. My family. I was supposed to protect you but I couldn’t keep you safe –”

Her voice breaks, and Sammy feels a rush of guilt for ever doubting her. He can tell Ben feels the same, Ben shifting uncomfortably where he sits.

“What happened?” Jack asks, and he tries to prop himself up again. This time, Sammy helps him instead of pushing him down, guiding a pillow behind his head.

“Agent Gunderson,” Emily spits the name like a curse word. “The chancellor’s second in command. Our direct manager. He gave me the order to – to bomb a newly terraformed planet. Full of civilians. An illness had spread, and the Federation thought it was easier to kill off all of the new settlers rather than work on a cure for the illness.”

Her mouth twists unpleasantly. “It was my call, and I said no. That we’d never do something like that. And I told you all that – that he’d understood, that he’d been alright with it. But he wasn’t. I was threatened – over and over again, in more and more creative ways. At first it was just my captainship, but then it was all of you. He threatened to kill you all if I ever disobeyed an order again.”

Sammy feels Jack’s grip on him grow a little tighter, and he wishes he could – God, he doesn’t know what he wishes, other than that he could remember any of this. His body is reacting like he does, with pain and misery, and he _knows_ he lived through that.

God, if only he could remember anything.

“I knew it would only be a matter of time before he tested me,” Emily continues, her breathing slow and measured. “So I started looking into _why._ Why would Gunderson want that planet bombed? And that’s when I found the connection to the mogul Howard Beauregard.”

“The scandal,” Mary says suddenly. “The connection between Beauregard’s money and the Federation. Was that – did you _break_ that, Emily?”

“Jack did, actually,” Emily says, her smile watery, patting Jack’s chest gently to prove her point. “I told him what to look for, but he was the one who knew how to access it. And we brought it to the crew. To all of you.”

She takes a shuddering breath. “We took a vote on whether or not to expose it or not. It was unanimous. I found a news source to trust with the information – Maggie Masterson said she could get it to every corner of the system.”

“Something horrible happened to her,” Mary says suddenly, his eyes wide. “God, I – I don’t remember what it is, but it was something…”

“They tore her apart,” Emily shudders, tears in her eyes. “Quite literally, too. It was different with us. We were fueling at the Headquarters when we heard about Maggie – I knew it wasn’t long before they’d. They’d trace it back to us. Ben and I were the only ones on the ship – I tried to get a message to the rest of you to run –”

Emily’s crying in earnest now, and when it seems like no one else is going to do anything, Sammy lets go of Jack’s hand, and crosses the small space between them to put his arm around Emily’s shoulder.

He can see Jack smiling at him, very tender, as Emily gets snot on his shirt. It’s alright. He doesn’t mind. Emily’s –

Emily’s his friend. Huh.

“I’m sorry for pushing so hard,” Ben says into the room’s tense silence, regret clearly heavy in his voice. “I – I didn’t know it was as bad as it is. If I would have – I wouldn’t have pushed so hard. I wouldn’t have interfered with your plan…”

“Oh, Benny,” Emily says, laughing, just a little as she moves her head from Sammy’s shoulder and wipes at her eyes. “You don’t think I knew that you were going to do it no matter what I told you? I told Jack and Troy before we even got off the ship that one of them might need to run after you.”

Ben’s face turns morose and guilty the second she says Jack’s name, eyes flickering across the room to Jack’s shoulder. “Guess you really do know me better than I know myself, huh?”

“What happened next?” Troy asks Emily, voice soft but insistent. “After you sent the message.”

“The ship was torn apart,” Emily shudders. “I saw someone grab Ben – I tried to fight it, but one of the agents knocked me out cold. When I came to, it was to a prison cell. I had no idea what had happened to anyone else. I saw Mary once, but she was unconscious in one of the cells. We were – I think we were all tortured. I’m not sure for how long. They wanted to get information out of us about how we found the information. I didn’t tell them anything. I told them, again and again, that I would tell them whatever they wanted if my crew went free. And I guess, in a way, they listened.”

“The wipe,” Sammy realizes out loud and Emily nods.

“I don’t know how many prisoners they’d used it on before then,” Emily says slowly. “But the six of us were certainly some of the first. They took everything they thought could be useful. Not just information about them, but any time we spent in the Federation. Any training we had. Any time we spent with each other. All of it – gone.”

“Sliced away,” Jack says quietly. Sammy, from the end of the bed, is close enough to squeeze his knee. He does, without thinking about it.

Emily nods in response. “You and Sammy knew each other for years before you met the rest of us. And that’s all gone. Benny’s medical school. Troy, you had a different crew before you were assigned to us. And if you don’t remember your wife – Mary, if you don’t remember your husband – that’s even more.”

“Do you –” Mary asks, and she and Troy both stare at Emily with the widest and most terrified twin looks that Sammy’s ever seen.

“Your husband’s name is Tim,” Emily says with a weak smile in Mary’s direction. “You’ve got two kids, Bella and Timmy. They’re seven and nine now. Tim worked for the Bureau, I haven’t been able to contact him but – I think he got the kids out of Federation territory once he realized you weren’t coming home. I don’t know where they are now, I’m sorry.”

Mary gasps, a hand over her mouth, and Sammy feels a rush of sympathy. Emily then turns to Troy with a grimace. “Troy, your wife is Loretta. I think – I think they arrested her too, when she wouldn’t accept that you were gone. I don’t know what happened to her – if I had to guess, I’d say she was wiped down as well.”

“Gosh,” Troy scrubs a hand over his face, his composure finally breaking down, a tear in the corner of his eye.

“What about you, Emily?” Ben asks suddenly. “How – how are you here? How do you remember, did you…escape?”

The question hangs in the air, Emily looks from Ben to Sammy to the rest of them, her face unreadable.

“They wiped me down,” she said slowly. “It…didn’t take. I remembered it all. But I knew I needed to act like I forgot, or they’d never stop chasing me. I found my way to Zenith. Got myself a ship. I’ve been trying to find you all for the past three years.”

“The wipe didn’t work?” Ben asks slowly as he and Sammy exchange disbelieving looks. Sammy had never heard of that happening – well, he supposes he might not remember if he had or not. Huh. “Why didn’t you tell me that before? I got all these samples from the lab – but I wouldn’t have done it if I’d know the wipe _didn’t work on you._ Do you have any idea why? Oh my God, have you gotten any medical tests? Are there any –”

“Benny,” Emily interrupts, affectionate but firm. “No one can know it doesn’t work on me. The Federation would be after me – former clients – hell, our current client! Do you think the Dark would trust me for one second if he knew that I had all of my memories and that him wiping me down won’t do a thing?”

“The Dark?” Sammy asks, a little dubious. “Who’s…”

Emily sighs, shaking her head. “The man who hired me. I don’t know his real name. He calls himself the Dark. He’s immature and childish, but he knows what he’s doing. He gave me boatloads of information that _no one_ should have about the Science Institute unless they –”

“Unless they worked there,” Jack supplies without waiting for Emily to finish, and he moves forward quickly as if to lean in before wincing and pulling his shoulder back. Sammy feels a rush of affection. “There were techs in the Science Institute who said that they’d been completely wiped down, that there were chips in their skulls to prevent them from escaping. Could this Dark guy be one of them? Someone who’s escaped?”

Emily bites her lip, looking at Jack. “I – maybe. I don’t know. I really don’t know him much at all.”

“Once we expose this info, we need to find some way to help those people,” Jack says, voice leaving no room for argument. “She said that the only way to help was to take down the Institute itself.”

“So we’re not cutting and running, then?” Troy interrupts, shifting from foot to foot guiltily as Emily turns to stare at him. “Sorry, Emily, we talked and – none of us want to risk forgetting this. Even if you don’t ever have to risk it, we do.”

“We can run,” Emily says slowly, shooting an apologetic look at Jack when his mouth falls open. “I understand if you want to run. Our lives were ruined by exposing information once. I won’t blame you for running – but I need to get this information out in the world.”

“So do I,” Jack says, a glint in his eye that Sammy thinks he recognizes. He quickly turns to Sammy, biting his lip, looking a shade guiltier, before saying “I mean – well – I want to. But we should do it together.”

“We should _all_ do it together,” Ben interrupts, and Sammy’s somewhat surprised to see him spring to his feet. “Maybe the risk isn’t worth it – but maybe it is. Emily’s immune to the wipe. That, to me, means there _has_ to be a cure. Somewhere, somehow, there has to be. And Emily could be the key to figuring it out.”

“Ben, I really don’t think –” Emily starts, but Ben cuts her off.

“I’m a doctor, right?” He asks, and when Emily doesn’t respond, he asks again. “ _Right_?”

She nods at him.

“Then let me figure it out,” Ben says with that fierce look of determination that Sammy’s so used to. “Using the samples and resources I stole, I can figure out a connection. I can figure this out, I _know_ I can. So let’s expose these creepy fucks and all of their corrupt ties – and if the worst happens, we’ll figure it out from there. Because if there’s a cure, then their biggest weapon against us is gone. If we remember it all – they can’t stop us. If we’re wiped, we’ll find a way not to be anymore!”

Ben’s smiling. He’s the optimist, Sammy thinks to himself, he’s always been such an optimist, and never before has Sammy so desperately wanted to buy into that faith in the future.

“Put it to a vote,” Ben says, turning to Emily. “Like you did before. You said we voted, and it was unanimous. All the risks are worth it….if we can remember.”

Emily slowly turns to each of them, but Sammy’s not looking at her when he nods. He’s looking at Jack.

Jack smiles at him, real and present. All Sammy wants to do is remember Jack. He’s willing to risk it all to remember Jack.

“I’ll set the course for Zenith,” Emily says quietly after a moment. “And contact the Dark. Maybe he’ll be understanding of our…situation. Especially if he does have deeper ties to the Institute. Maybe you’re right, Ben, and we can cure this. I don’t know but – if everyone else is willing to try, then so am I.”

“Don’t go yet,” Ben says suddenly when Emily stands up. “I mean – we all – you said we were all a family once. Can you just….tell us about that? Please?”

“I’d like to know about that too,” Troy says softly. “I don’t think any of us have much of a life, nowadays. I’d gladly sacrifice it for a family. But I’d like to know my family a little better.”

“Five years is a long time,” Emily says quietly, but she’s smiling. “I’ve got a lot of stories. I – I mean, I have some favorites…I haven’t thought about them often. It’s been too painful.”

Sammy, still next to Emily, squeezes her knee. She smiles up at him, watery but very present.

“How old am I?” Ben asks as if it just occurred to him, a splitting grin on his face as he turns to Sammy. Sammy can’t help but laugh at the excitement on his face.

“How old?” Emily laughs, creasing her eyebrows a little in confusion. “Um, thirty-two.”

“Ha!” Ben points in Sammy’s direction, a vindictive grin on his face. “I _told_ you I was over thirty! I told you!”

“You don’t look it,” Sammy rolls his eyes in response. “Alright, I’ll bite the bullet, how old am I?”

“Thirty-seven, I think,” Emily says, eyes shifting between the pair of them as if she can’t quite believe this is the direction they’re taking this in when they could ask anything. Sammy’s not quite sure either, but he is _also_ vindicated by her answer with a satisfied grin at Ben.

“ _Under forty,”_ Sammy bites at him with a grin. “I was _right._ ”

“You two are ridiculous,” Jack tells them but there’s an affectionate look on his face all the same as he leans backwards on his bed, and Sammy takes his hand without thinking about it.

“How’d we all meet, then? Specifically how did Sammy and I meet? I’ve wondered that for ages,” Ben says, a wistful look on his face and Emily laughs before she starts to speak.

“Well, we all came aboard our ship at the same time,” Emily says, nostalgia heavy in her voice. “Sammy and Jack, you two had already been together for years, but you didn’t tell the rest of us until more than a year in. But that’s when the rest of us met, on that ship – the two of _you_ were pretending like you were strangers, which is so ridiculous, looking back.”

Sammy feels a blush on his cheeks even though he’s not sure why it’s there, but the feeling of Jack’s hand in his own makes everything feel worth it.

“But I was being very professional, welcoming you all aboard the vessel, showing you your bunks and such,” Emily says with a laugh. “And then I hear little Benny Arnold, who I thought was just the _sweetest_ kid in the world…”

“Kid?” Ben interrupts. “C’mon, I’m thirty-two, you just said!”

“You were twenty-five then, you were the youngest of us by far,” Emily points out with a teasing laugh. “Anyway, I hear you _cursing_ for a solid two minutes up on the bridge! I run up to see what’s going on, leaving poor Mary alone downstairs, and find you storming down the stairs.”

She’s hiding a huge grin now. “When I ask you what the matter is, you say, and I quote, _cocky fucking pilot thinks he’s hot shit_.”

“Is that me?” Sammy asks, a little confused, but he laughs as Ben leans over to kick his legs.

“What’d you do, asshole?” Ben asks, laughing, and Emily just shakes her head.

“Well, if Ben looks young now, he looked even younger then,” Emily says, biting her lip as she grins. “Sammy, you thought he was some teenage kid who’d found his way onto the ship.”

Ben groans and Sammy kicks Ben’s leg’s right back.

“You thought you’d done nothing wrong and didn’t understand why he was so angry, but Ben insisted that everyone call him _Doctor Arnold_ after that,” Emily says. “Still, it was barely a week before you were attached at the hip – still arguing just as much, of course, but like brothers. When I saw that the two of you were together, after all this time – well, it didn’t surprise me at all. You just…connected. I’m sure that no matter how the two of you met a second time, you could just connect like that again.”

Ben’s grinning at Sammy like everything’s alright, and Sammy can’t help but grin back. It’s always been a question for them – now they finally know where they started.

* * *

 

_“So. I’ll put it to a vote, then.”_

_Sammy’s gripping Jack’s hand so tightly he’s afraid he might break a finger, but Jack’s hold is just as tight. Jack’s wedding ring is digging into Sammy’s skin, reminding him that no matter what happens, no one can take that away from him._

_Emily’s face is drawn and pale, but she stands straight and tall at the head of the table. The lamps in the kitchen had gone out ages ago, after hours of talking through all of their possible options moving forward._

_They wouldn’t get to keep this, Sammy already knew, looking at his crew, his family that he’d spent the past five years with. Troy’s usual unwavering attitude is already gone, his face drawn and miserable, Mary’s matching it. Even Ben’s furrowed brow and teary eyes seem to know that there’s no good way out of this situation._

_“We can either stay here, as we are now, and take whatever orders come down the pipe – no matter how despicable or heinous,” Emily starts, her mouth twisting painfully, “or we can take the information Jack found about_ why _the Federation is suddenly interested in heinous behavior and expose it for all the system to know and take the consequences as they come. Or…”_

_She swallows palpably. “We can run. Resign our post, use our severance money to buy a ship of our own….and leave and never look back. Get our families and leave Federation space. We’d probably have to go Zenith or try our luck out in the abyss. But those are the only options there are. And none of them are good.”_

_There’s silence, but only for a moment. Ben is the first to speak, because of course he is. No one has a moral compass like Ben Arnold, or a fiery passion to see things done right. Sammy loves him for it, but that doesn’t make it any less painful._

_“The system has to know,” Ben says, firm and solid, and Sammy’s head spins even further out of control, and he knows Jack can feel it. Jack’s arm is around his shoulder, warm and solid and Sammy already misses it, prepared for when it’s no longer there. “We can’t just sit on this information. This is our government. They’re doing horrible things to people who don’t deserve it, and we know why. It has to be out there.”_

_“Ben’s right,” Troy dovetails immediately on Ben’s words. “You can’t just see injustice and ignore it. Running away might be safest – but I’ll never forgive myself for it.”_

_“Running isn’t safe,” Mary replies, her mouth tight and hard. “None of these options are safe. Like Emily said. There’s no good choice. I have kids to look out for, and my kids deserve to live in a world where their government can be trusted. And it just can’t right now, and it won’t never unless we tell someone about this.”_

_Quiet reigns after that, and Sammy knows that either he or Jack needs to speak next. Jack looks at him as if to ask for permission, and all Sammy can do is nod. He can’t say no, even though every part of him is screaming to run away._

_Run away with his family, keep his friends safe, that’s all Sammy wants. It’s his only chance at having a life with Jack, with Ben, having kids someday, being_ alive.

_But he nods anyway. He and Jack have to decide together, and Sammy already knows what Jack thinks. He knows Jack would do anything to fight these injustices, and Sammy’s going to let him._

_It might drive them apart forever, but Sammy’s going to have to make his peace with that. He’d rather do the right thing and have Jack grin at him like that one more time._

_He’s going to lose Jack, Sammy knows, no matter which of the three options they take. Even if they tried to run. Even if they swallowed their morals and said nothing. He’s going to lose Jack, and he’s never been more terrified in his life._

_He’d like them to be together in the end, doing the right thing. With their family. Even if Sammy could convince Jack to run, and that would be impossible, he’d never convince Ben. And Sammy would never, ever leave Ben behind._

_So he’ll nod at Jack and say yes, because he’d rather die alongside the people he loved than live alone, and he’s known that for a long time now. It’s okay – he’s not afraid. He’s with Jack, so he’s not afraid._

_“Do it,” Jack says, intertwining his fingers with Sammy’s as if to say_ thank you. _As if to say_ I’m sorry. _“There’s no other way.”_

_Emily smiles at them, shaky but real. “Alright. I’ll find a contact to break it open, spread it to every corner of the system. And then we’ll act like nothing’s wrong, play it casual. But we’ll be ready to run if we need to. Call your families, tell them to be on alert. We’ll try to get lucky and stay – but we might have to run anyway.”_

_Sammy already knows it’s not going to come to that. He’ll spend the next week like it’s his last. He starts with kissing Jack, soft and brief, not quite a goodbye yet._

_He’s sure that’s coming soon enough._


	6. Yes, yes we are.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> God, this one took forever to churn out, and is massively unedited and ties almost nothing up, but this is the ending!! I might write more in this verse, there's obviously A Lot of potential for moving the story forward, but this is meant to feel more like a close to a book in a series or a season of a show than the full story on its own. It's like a piece of the story, I guess. Is it because that's the part of the story I wanted to tell or just laziness? No one will ever know.
> 
> But I'm excited that this will free me up to write other hopefully also long projects and some short fluffy ones! Look out for those in the future!!

_Six Months Later_

Sammy orders a drink at the bar, downs it in three seconds flat.

He’s anxious, nearly thrumming out of his skin as he stares at the door. Fucking hell. The Dark swore Jack would be here tonight, his sources were reliable, Jack _had_ to be coming through the door any minute now.

Sammy squeezes the syringe he has in his pocket tightly around his hands. When this had happened to Troy two months back, it had been terrifying. No one knew if it would work for a second time on a wipe so complete. But Ben had known what he was doing, and Troy had come back to them safe and sound and whole, memories fitting back into place.

The Red Rock is busy tonight, patrons flitting in and out of the doors. Zenith is busier in general now, has ever since the story broke. Ever since the wipe became not just an unfortunate criminal activity on the other side of the system, but a weapon of destruction used by their own government.

Everyone knew now. A lot more people searching for their loved ones now.

Sammy included.

Jack comes in the door about ten minutes after Sammy arrives. Rendezvous point, the Dark had told him snidely when Sammy had not so nicely shoved him bodily into the nearest wall and told him in no uncertain terms that he’d figure out what the hell happened to his husband. Rendezvous point with who and for what purpose, the Dark doesn’t know.

Jack looks whole when Sammy sees him though, and his shoulders sag in relief in though Jack hasn’t seen him yet, probably wouldn’t recognize him if he did. He’s guarded, his body coiled tight on in itself like he used to get when he was working too hard, and his eyes are shifting through the crowd as if he’s looking for someone.

Sammy knows it’s not him that Jack’s looking for, and if he wants to get any information, he has to wait.

Jack makes his way to the bar through the throng of people, slow and measured, eyes traveling around the room carefully.

He’s two meters away from Sammy when he says, voice rough and scratchy but endlessly familiar, to the bartender “No, no drink. Meeting a – Chet Sebastian?”

“That’d be me,” a gravelly voice in the chair next to Sammy says. Sammy doesn’t recognize the name, tries not to look to interested in what’s going on next to him, idly sipping the last drops of his drink. “You’d be Jack Wright, yes?”

“I think so,” Jack says, unsure, and God, Sammy needs to get him the fuck out of here. “Thanks for reaching out, Mr. Sebastian. I’m not entirely sure what you’re hiring me to –”

“Slow your roll there, son,” Chet Sebastian says and Sammy steals a look at his face, just for a second. He’s an older gentleman dressed in a gaudy black and gold suit, a few wrinkles but young enough to still probably be nimble on his feet. Sounds like an alcoholic, the way his words slur together just slightly. “I ain’t hiring you to do anything that take me to that pretty little captain of yours, Miss Emily Potter. You may not think it, but she’s a friend of mine and –”

“I don’t know an Emily Potter,” Jack interrupts, his voice tight, and Sammy figures now is as good time as any to interrupt.

He swings himself to his feet, crosses the few feet between himself and Chet, and taps the man on the shoulder. “I know an Emily Potter.”

Chet stares up at him, blinking slowly, looking unimpressed, but Sammy’s more focused on Jack’s reaction. Jack blinks at him, a distrustful look in his eye. No recognition.

It’s what Sammy expected, but it doesn’t make the pang in his chest hurt any less.

“Well, boy,” Chet smiles lazily up at him, taking a long sip of his drink. “I guess that makes you a Sammy Stevens or a Ben Arnold.”

“Stevens,” Sammy answers in affirmative. “What do you want with Emily?”

“Like I said, she’s a friend of mine,” Chet says, even and measured. “And I’d like to set up a meeting with her. I hear she can get a man’s memories back from the abyss.”

Sammy should’ve expected something like this. Occasionally, someone would know more than they let on about Captain Potter and her crew. Word got through the grape vine and someone would come begging for their memories back.

Or else try to take them by force.

Sammy suppresses a shudder.

“I can get a message to her,” Sammy says slowly, trying to think of the best way to play this that will get himself and Jack out of here with the least amount of hassle. Preferably no guns drawn. “If you’re really a friend –”

“Good friend,” Chet fills in, mostly unhelpfully, a sleazy smile on his face. Sammy can’t quite believe that it’s the case, but he can check with Emily to make sure. “And I think you’ll bring me to your ship tonight, Stevens.”

“I really don’t think so,” Sammy says, and that’s when he notices the tiny pistol in Chet’s left hand flip up and point directly at him.

“I really _do_ think so,” Chet says. The bar is in full swing around them, no one’s noticed, no one would even care. This is the Red Rock, hub for criminal activity. Bodies are dragged out of here every night of the week. Sammy’s heart beats uncomfortably quickly, trying to formulate a plan.

“I don’t,” Jack interrupts, and Sammy turns to see Jack’s got a pistol of his own, much bulkier, but still pointed directly at Chet. “And I’d like an explanation for why you think I can get you to this Captain Potter. I may only have a handful of memories left, but I know I can pull the trigger before you can.”

“Your reputation precedes you, Mr. Wright,” Chet says, laughing slightly, seemingly not intimidated at all. He pockets the weapon. “It’s worth a try, boys, always worth a try. I really am a friend of Miss Emily.”

“Get out,” Sammy says slowly, pointing in the direction of the door. “Don’t make Jack shoot you.”

Chet languidly stands, makes his way toward the door through the crowd and not looking back.

Sammy deflates, turns to Jack, but then he realizes that Jack hasn’t put the weapon away, that it’s pointing right at Sammy and Jack’s eyes are cold.

“Explain,” Jack says, voice steely.

Sammy swallows, the room suddenly too hot. “Jack – let’s take this outside, yeah?”

“Start walking then,” Jack jerks his gun in the direction of the door. Sammy leads Jack out into the warm air of a night on Zenith, uncomfortably aware of the pistol he knows is pointed straight at his back that could go off any second with the slightest touch.

Something would stop Jack, Sammy rationalizes to himself. Something would stop him from doing that. Muscle memory. Instinct. Love. _Something_.

“I’ve spent the last three weeks,” Jack says when Sammy finally turns around again. The streets are as deserted as the bar is busy. Zenith after dark isn’t a safe place to be. “The last three weeks operating off of two stray memories that I can place. I murdered a diplomat in a palace. I vomited after being wiped down at a black-market meeting on Zenith. I didn’t know my own goddamn name, but everyone I met here on this fucking planet seems to. I keep getting stopped on the street with job offers, requests to off some governmental official. Yesterday, Chet Sebastian reached out and told me that we could help each other out. But I don’t know who the fuck Emily Potter is, or who you are. But you seem to know me, so you better start fucking talking.”

“Jack,” Sammy says weakly, his hands up in the air, and he wishes he could reach into his pocket for the syringe without setting Jack off. His eyes are so hardened, it reminds Sammy of re-meeting for the first time, that complete lack of recognition that makes his stomach boil. “This will be easier if you’ll put the gun –”

“Absolutely not,” Jack says. “I have to assume I was wiped down. Hard. And that it was fairly recent. So start with that. Why would someone wipe me down that hard?”

“We were boarded,” Sammy says slowly, the memory making him shudder. “Locked down by a Federation crew led by Ernie Saucedo – but they didn’t know who we were yet, we were still operating with fake identities. They brought us in for questioning anyway, and most of us were let go but – but not you. Somehow, your alias was connected to your real name and Ernie –”

Sammy can’t even say it. “The rest of us all got out alive, but only just. I thought – God, I thought they might’ve killed you. I think they would’ve, but – but the cure. What Chet was talking about. I don’t think the Federation knows about that yet. It’s all we have, really, that they don’t know we can work against them.”

“Cure,” Jack repeats, his eyes still distrustful, but his grip on the gun relaxes just slightly. “Is there…?”

“I have it with me,” Sammy says, making a somewhat subtle gesture to his pocket. “Please Jack, we can take care of it right now, we can –”

His grip relaxes even further, Sammy can tell, and this might be his only chance. Jack might shoot him before Sammy’s able to get this done, but he knows his Jack, even if Jack doesn’t know himself, and Jack would rather be safe than sorry and would never let Sammy inject him with anything without exacting knowledge of what was in it.

Sammy isn’t a trained assassin, has much less physical prowess than Jack on Jack’s worst day, but thankfully, this _is_ one of Jack’s worst. He might have muscle memory, but there’s hardly anything else there.

Sammy lunges for the gun, locks hands with Jack as they struggle for it. It goes off, but it’s pointed straight up as they fight for it, and Sammy hopes that there aren’t more bullets in the chamber.

Sammy’s prepared, knows some of Jack’s tricks, and he’s able to yank the gun from Jack’s grasp. He likes to think it’s because Jack’s body knew what his brain didn’t, that Sammy just wants to help, but he’ll never know for sure.

Sammy can’t bear to point the gun at Jack, tosses it to the side without a thought, and pulls the syringe out of his pocket instead.

That’s when Jack punches him in the face.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Sammy says, pain blooming from his nose, but he can’t even reach up and see if it’s broken. This is his only window –

It’s a good thing Ben prepped the syringe in advance, and all Sammy needs to do is lunge forward and press the needle into Jack’s arm.

Jack struggles against Sammy for a few seconds, but it isn’t long until his body completely relaxes, and Sammy’s left practically holding him up. Sammy doesn’t let his relief overtake him, instead pulling Jack’s lax body into the alleyway behind the bar so that no one can see them, so that no one can know what’s happening.

It’s a small dose. It might not bring back all of Jack’s memories, but there’ll be enough. Sammy has to tell himself that, has to repeat it often as he falls backward, back against the wall and slowly sliding down to sit, bringing Jack with him as Jack’s head lolls on his shoulder.

They have to do small doses, it has to come in spurts, because every dosage has to have Emily’s blood. It’s the key ingredient; it doesn’t work without her. Ben’s trying to find more people who have Emily’s immunity to the wipe, but it’s hard when you’re on the run and live in a spaceship. You don’t meet a lot of new people, especially new people whose first instinct is to do something other than threaten your life.

Jack’s body jerks away from Sammy’s as if he’s waking from a nightmare, and Sammy reaches out a hand to cup Jack’s cheek.

“Hey, hey, it’s me,” Sammy says quietly as Jack’s eyes wildly survey the situation, suddenly completely alert. “It’s Sammy, do you remember me?”

Jack squints at him as if Sammy’s just a little hazy and Sammy does his best to smile.

“I – I don’t – I don’t know…” Jack trails off, but the coldness from before has left his voice. He’s only confused. He’s probably having trouble sorting through it all. Sammy’s only been injected the one time, the first time, and the hardest part was not knowing what order everything came in, letting it all blur together as one long memory instead of fragments.

Sammy finds a favorite fragment, whispers it to Jack as he strokes his temple and Jack lets him.

“I had just bought a jumper plane,” Sammy says quietly, a smile twisting up to his lips. Remembering this makes him happy, makes him revel in the miracle of having memories once again. “It was a complete crapped – I was in my second year of flight school and had a repair manual class that I just couldn’t ever do anything right in. So I thought, if I could fix up this jumper plane, maybe I could figure out how the hell to do repairs in class.”

Jack blinks at him a couple times as if there’s something in his eye, and Sammy continues. “You sold it to me. You had all these weird, disjointed parts that you collected in your spare time – you could do fucking anything with them, I swear, you were so good at it. And you said to come back if I ever needed any help and I think I broke down two days later and came back. Mainly because I had no idea what the fuck I was doing – but I got to see you again, too.”

Sammy can’t help but smile. “You spent pretty much that whole semester schooling me on various repairs, I thought for sure you were a mechanic. I mean, you’re a tech, I guess the connection is there, but it was still so shocking to me. I didn’t even know it until two months after we’d met, since all we ever really talked about was how badly we wanted to get on a ship and fly.”

“Tech school,” Jack says, interrupting, his voice firm but a little marveling, his eyes finally soft on Sammy’s. “I met you – tech school. You were bad at everything but flying.”

Sammy laughs, it’s enough that that’s what Jack remembers for now, and he hugs his husband to his chest. Jack, thankfully, hugs back, tight and present.

“Do you remember right now?” Sammy asks into his shoulder, not really caring if he does, he will soon, but it would make things easier. “Emily and Ben – Ernie – the cure –”

“Fucking Ernie,” Jack mumbles into his shoulder. “I almost got a knife in his gut before –”

Jack pulls himself off of Sammy with a heaving cough, and turns around to retch on the already filthy ground of the alleyway.

Sammy doesn’t know if it’s a reaction to the chemicals or Jack’s memories catching up. It had been more miserable for Jack than anyone, the first time around. He’d killed so many people. He’ll still wake up shuddering and sobbing, remembering the details more clearly by the day.

Sammy strokes Jack’s hair without really thinking about it.

“I was so worried,” Sammy says quietly, just in case it’s the former. “We were trying to get prepped to take off and I said I wouldn’t leave without you – but Emily knew you were a lost cause, she knocked me out and flew away herself. I didn’t speak to her for a week.”

“She made the right call,” Jack croaks, wiping at his mouth and leaning back into Sammy. “They obliterated most anything in my head – I can’t believe this shit is strong enough to counteract it. How’d you find me?”

“We had to go to the Dark for info,” Sammy’s lip curls in mild disgust. The Dark’s heart, as Ben said, was probably in the right place, but his brain and mouth certainly weren’t. “First he said maybe – maybe you’d be taken to the Institute. But Ernie has fewer connections to the Institute than most, he would really only know how to wipe…”

“I wish he would’ve sent me,” Jack’s eyes get fierce and determined as if he’s only just remembered. “Then maybe I would have seen –”

“You wouldn’t have remembered her,” Sammy remind him quietly. “So don’t even say it. And don’t get yourself captured by the right people just to have a chance to see her. Because then I’d have to come looking for you.”

“You’d find me,” Jack says, his smile a little lopsided, but it makes Sammy happier than he can even think about that Jack knows he would, _know it_ so instinctively like that.

“Maybe,” Sammy says, pulling Jack to his feet, trying not to let himself burst with emotion here in a fucking alleyway on Zenith. He had to get Jack back to the ship, to the med bay and a second dosage, and tries not to notice the way Jack’s looking at him like he’s falling in love all over again.

He just gets an arm around Jack’s waist and pulls him back out into the world. He talks quietly to Jack, going through a few memories to help orient Jack, knowing it had helped when Troy had gotten wiped down, and Jack’s mostly quiet until they’re only a few yards from the ship bay.

“Is there any progress?” Jack asks softly. “About Lily?”

“There might be something,” Sammy tells him a little reluctantly. Jack’s obsessed with combing through Science Institute records, desperately trying to find his sister.

Sammy understands. If he had remembered Jack, and knew Jack was locked away in some awful sterile room in the Science Institute, he would be desperate to follow too, no matter what the cost.

“What is it?” Jack asks, sharp and alert.

“Mary found a connection while you were gone,” Sammy says, smiling a little. “She wanted you to have good news to come back. Of the people that have gone missing from the Federation, most names reappear somewhere on Zenith, even if public records aren’t kept – but we found a Pete Meyers that never resurfaced. That was one of the names, wasn’t it? Pete?”

Jack nods and Sammy continues. “Ben’s making contact tonight with his mother – Marigold. It might not be the right Pete, but the records match, and Ben said he recognized the picture. So he should’ve met her tonight, so maybe when we get back –”

“We’ll know something,” Jack says determinedly, and suddenly moves a lot faster, and is the one pulling Sammy along instead of Sammy pulling him.

Their ship is lit up golden in the dark sky, and Sammy feels an unmistakable warm feeling of _home_ in his chest.

“Jack’s here and somewhat functioning,” Sammy says into the comms unit on the wall the second he and Jack get up the bridge. “We should take off sooner than later.”

Emily’s voice crackles back a second later. “Oh, thank God Jack’s alright. But, um – we can’t take off quite yet.”

“Why not?” Sammy says, a small bit of panic growing, but he won’t let it take control just yet. It might just be a repair Mary needs to take care of before they take off. It doesn’t have to be –

“Benny’s not back yet,” Emily’s voice reluctantly crackles through the speaker and Sammy curses under his breath.

“Bit lazy, isn’t he?” Jack says from next to Sammy, obviously trying to crack a joke as his grip on Sammy’s shoulder tightens.

“He was meant to be back before me,” Sammy states, challenging Emily to refute him, but the comms stay silent.

There’s silence until Mary appears on the other side of the bridge, and grins widely over at the two of them before running to meet them, pulling Jack into a tight hug.

“Hey, stranger,” Mary says into Jack’s shoulder and Jack hugs her back warmly. “Long time, no see.”

“Mary, can you get Jack a second injection?” Sammy says, making his decision in a split second. “I’m gonna go see what’s holding Ben up.”

“If something went wrong, Emily won’t want you endangering –” Mary starts with a troubled frown, but Sammy waves her off.

“Just want to see what’s going on,” Sammy says lightly and pleasantly as if nothing could possibly be the matter. Jack’s raising an eyebrow at him like he can see right through him, but Sammy ignores that.

He leans in to kiss Jack goodbye, or hello, he’s not really sure which is which at any point in time. “Be back soon, alright?”

“Don’t do anything stupid!” Jack calls after him as if Sammy’s the reckless one in their relationship, which is so untrue it’s almost laughable.

Sammy’s not even entirely off the bridge until long strides and footfalls catch up with him and Troy’s got an arm slung around Sammy’s shoulder.

“I’m going after Ben,” Sammy says, challenging Troy to change his mind, but Troy just pats his elbow.

“Me too, buddy,” Troy says, a small smile on his face. “Was just waitin’ for you to get back so we could go get his tiny ass together.”

Sammy can’t help but smile even amid his worry for Ben – because if anyone on the ship was too goddamn reckless, it was Ben fucking Arnold. Sammy had always known that, even when he hadn’t known anything about Ben other than that he loved him.

“Maybe Ms. Marigold Meyers is the answer to all our problems,” Troy says optimistically as they head out of the shipyard and back into the center of Zenith. Ben had been meeting Marigold at an out of the way location on the edge of town, but they’d have to walk a longer way to find the rendezvous spot. She wasn’t a native of Zenith, she’d flown here just for this meeting about her son’s whereabouts.

“I think she’ll have just as many questions as we do and no answers,” Sammy mutters darkly under his breath. “But that doesn’t explain why she’d be a threat to Ben.”

“He’s fine, maybe he’s just charmed her and she’s a’cryin’ on his shoulder ‘bout her son,” Troy says, and sounds like he really believes it. He’s of Ben’s school of thought that optimism is the best way to go about seeing the world.

Sammy’s pessimistic nature can’t stop him from saying “Or she’s kidnapped him because he and her son are the same age and she’s calling him Petey.”

“Worst case scenario,” Troy says evenly, and they walk in silence after that so as not to draw too much undue attention to themselves from whoever’s out and about this late on Zenith.

The abandoned shipyard where Ben had been planning to meet Marigold Meyers was empty at first glance, and Sammy turned to Troy apprehensively. A frown finally appeared on Troy’s face.

“Maybe he’s left, took a different way back,” Troy says slowly and unconvincingly. Sammy shakes his head, puts a finger to his lips, and quietly begins making his way around the perimeter of the shipyard, Troy following him.

There is no sign of Ben, or Marigold Meyers – but then Sammy hears a soft sound coming from an old repair building that looks like it needs to be torn down because it’s so unsafe structurally.

Sammy points to it and Troy nods, and the two of them creep toward it cautiously, both on high tension and alert. The sound seems to be coming from a human being, though Sammy can’t be sure, and maybe it’s Ben –

Sammy pushes on the door and it opens without so much as a twist of the handle.

“Hey!”

Sammy whirls around to see Troy running in the opposite direction, and with an uncomfortable twist in his stomach, Sammy sees the figure half-cast in shadows on the other side of the shipyard bolting as soon as Troy calls after him.

Troy runs, and Sammy’s about to follow, but then he hears the sound again and realizes it’s coughing. Hacking, in fact, like someone’s choking.

He turns back to the inside of the repair shed and sees Ben sprawled on the floor, seemingly hacking up a lung, his eyes going in and out of focus. He’s clearly conscious and trying to get himself into a seated position, but his cough just keeps preventing him from sitting all the way up.

“Ben?” Sammy falls to the ground without a second a thought, emphatically thumping Ben’s back as he tries to get the coughing to stop. He wishes he had water, but thinks Ben just might spit it out anyway. “Hey, hey, what happened? Do you….do you know who I am?”

Ben coughs a few times around a mouthful of words, and Sammy’s terrified for a half a second before he starts making them out. “C-cocky….” He breaks off to cough again. “ –fucking pilot – hot fucking shit”

“Alright, so you remember,” Sammy can’t help but hug Ben even as he rolls his eyes, and Ben’s coughing tampers off after that, though he’s still clearly not altogether well, and his eyes are still unfocused when Sammy pulls him to his feet.

“What happened? Troy ran after – was it Marigold?” Sammy asks and Ben shakes his head.

“No,” Ben says, looking up at him with a combination of fear and excitement. “That’s a new contact. Called himself Mr. X. He was impersonating Marigold in our correspondence – apparently, Marigold herself asked too many questions about Pete’s disappearance and now she’s gone, too.”

“What?” Sammy asks and Ben grins.

“He says he knows the captives at the Science Institute, and left files for me,” Ben taps his watch, where presumably something had been uploaded during this meeting. “We might really be able to save them.”

“Then why were you on the ground when I found you?” Sammy asks, still confused. “It might just be me, but I don’t think of guys who knock you out as the most trustworthy sources.”

“Drugged me,” Ben says with a little grin, and Sammy stares. “Just a miniscule version of the wipe – so I’d forget his face. It’s all blurry now.”

“Again,” Sammy repeats, more forcefully. “Not the most trustworthy source.”

“You can verify the info on Lily and tell me how trustworthy it is,” Ben says as if there’s no reason for argument. Ben’s too trusting, Sammy knows that too, but that’s why he’s here, to balance that out and be a voice of reason. “Your husband will want to act on the info with me, I’m sure.”

“You and my husband,” Sammy says a little more forcefully than he feels, an eye-roll coming on quickly. “Always pulling _one_ of you out of trouble.”

“Is he okay?” Ben’s voice suddenly goes soft as if he’s only just remembered. “Does he –”

“He’s probably annoyed at me for leaving him on the ship,” Sammy says with a good-natured laugh. “And Emily’s probably annoyed at me for leaving the ship, full stop.”

“She would’ve come after me if you didn’t,” Ben says confidently, a bright grin on his face. It’s hard to believe that Ben was able to ever forget Emily for a second, the love he has for her perpetually overflowing.

Sammy doesn’t respond, instead pulling Ben out of the shed to find Troy jogging back toward them, panting.

“I couldn’t catch up with the guy,” Troy says with a shake of his head. “Benny, are you –”

“Better than ever,” Ben says with a huge smile that’s cut off by another hacking cough.

Sammy thumps his back, rolls his eyes once more for good measure, and says “Come on. Let’s get back to the ship.”

“But Jack’s really okay? Everything went smoothly?” Ben asks Sammy more quietly as the three of them skirt the edge of Zenith on their way home.

“As smoothly as it’s ever going to go,” Sammy says, and can’t even be angry about it. He has more than he’d ever thought he would. Ben, Jack, his crew, his memories. No matter what happens next – he got to remember the people he loved.

He hooked an arm around Ben’s shoulder when Ben started uncontrollably hacking again, made a mental note to bring water the next time Ben went out alone on a mysterious rendezvous, and got Ben home in one piece.

He could do that as many times as he needed to to keep his family safe and together. That's all his future needs to hold. And now that he has a past - it seems likely that he might get to have a future, too.  


End file.
